The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
My primary email is no longer usable ( I retired from the workplace). I have a secondary email and cell # attached to the account. I'm worried that I will do something that will end up with everything attached to my apple account messed up - as well as for all of those in my family that are included in our plan. Thanks in advance.
iPhone 12, iOS 26
The support article Change your Apple Account primary email address - Apple Support outlines various methods for changing the email address (Apple ID) you use for your Apple Account while retaining everything in your account. When you have changed the address it can help if people restart devices so they take a fresh look at configurations.
The support article Change your Apple Account primary email address - Apple Support outlines various methods for changing the email address (Apple ID) you use for your Apple Account while retaining everything in your account. When you have changed the address it can help if people restart devices so they take a fresh look at configurations.
I don't use Tahoe. That document says:
Change your Apple Account primary email address on your iPhone or iPad
Read on for where it talks about doing this on the web (for a computer).
The original poster was asking about doing this on an iPhone, by the way.
I've seen your reply to a couple of similar threads - but that support page is simply not correct. I have a similar issue to Jacksprat58 in that I have an old account tied to an old ISP. I wanted to make my newer gmail address into the primary, as the old one will soon be defunct. The gmail address is verified and I can use it to log in.
If I go to Sign-In & Security for my Apple Account in System Settings on my Mac (Tahoe 26.1) there are no options to do anything with the primary address. For the verified secondary gmail address, the only thing it will let me do is delete it!
How do I change a primary email for my apple account without messing everything up?
