What are the steps to changing a icloud email?

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Level 1

8 points

What are the steps to changing a icloud email?

Hi,

My wife needs to update her icloud email address to reflect a name change (after we got married this year). We know we will need to create a new icloud email address, but we are curious of the steps required in the process:

Where do we create the new email address to ensure it is associated with her account?

Can we simply tell Apple to make her new ID the main one?

Is there an easy way to download all her existing emails to the new account so the change feels seemless?

Ty for any help and cheers!

Posted on Oct 12, 2023 1:39 AM

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Answer 1

Ingo2711

Level 9

73,287 points

Oct 12, 2023 4:38 AM in response to Lyphe-416

You should only change the existing Mail address to a different one, as explained in the article linked above.

After creating a completely new Mail address, you will not be able to use your existing Apple purchases and content, bought with the old Apple ID.

Merging two different Apple IDs is not possible.

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Answer 2

Ingo2711

Level 9

73,287 points

Oct 12, 2023 6:02 AM in response to Lyphe-416

The primary email address will be the Apple ID, but you can create up to three iCloud mail addresses, tied to your Apple ID and iCloud Mail.

Add and manage email aliases for iCloud Mail on iCloud.com - Apple Support

Create a primary email address for iCloud Mail - Apple Support

As an example:

If her old mail address has been maiden.name@iCloud.com she can add/change it to married.name@iCloud.com, and add it to the list.

After that she should be able to change her Apple ID to the new married name by logging into her Apple ID account, as described in Change your Apple ID. That is, if she wants to change the old Apple ID, and not only use a different email address from now on.

At the beginning of this discussion I thought, your wife only wants to change the Apple ID, which is also the primary email address.

I have two more different iCloud email addresses, and both of them end up in the same iCloud mail account in the Mail app.

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Answer 3

Ingo2711

Level 9

73,287 points

Oct 12, 2023 3:12 AM in response to Lyphe-416

Have a look at these related articles:

Change your Apple ID - Apple Support

What to do after you change your Apple ID or password - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Lyphe-416 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 12, 2023 4:14 AM in response to Ingo2711

Hi again Ingo,

Not sure if you know this, but I have a follow up question to ensure I create the new email correctly ...

Do you know which way to create the new email address:

1 - Create an alias under existing Apple ID (or),

2 - Create a new Apple ID with a new email address.

As a reminder, my wife wants to keep all of her existing settings, apps, information, and so on related to her current ID. She just wants a new main email address associated with it. I'm not sure if I can promote an alias to the main email after it is created .. and I assume I don't want to create a new ID ( option 2 ), or it'll bind that new email to a separate ID, unless they can be merged?

Let me know if you happen to know and cheers.

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Answer 5

Lyphe-416 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 12, 2023 5:03 AM in response to Ingo2711

So, if I understand it correctly ...

If she wants to have the new email act as her primary email for an iCloud account, we essentially need to create a new Apple ID from scratch and then use only that new ID going forward ( acknowledging that the new ID will require restarting most things from scratch ).

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