MacBook Pro: "Preference Error" in Apple ID preferences

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dana116 Author

Level 1

12 points

MacBook Pro: "Preference Error" in Apple ID preferences

Preference Error - There was an error in Apple ID preferences

The situation:

My wife has three devices

MacBook Pro 15” 2019 MacOS 10.15.7

iPhone 7 Plus iOS 15.8.5

iPad Pro 10.5” iOS 17.7.10

B) We do not “use” iCloud services, ie. very rarely we may sign in to her Apple Account from time to time to check on the status of her devices but always sign out after several minutes.

Problem

Recently she signed in using her MacBook

Made changes, ie made sure iCloud for photos and iCloud Drive were turned off. Looked at the trust report for the other two devices. Upon signing out she received the following error message

“Preference Error

There was an error in Apple ID preferences”

Sadly, no additional information as to the nature of the error

If she uses either of the other two devices and performs the same tasks, the sign-out process proceeds as expected.

We’ve done the usual: turned off Mac, signed back in, same result, boot in Safe Mode, sign in, sign out same result.

I know one of the suggestions will be to update the MacOS but she has several programs that will not run on a newer OS version so at the moment we are working with 10.15.7

I am hesitant to reinstall the OS from recovery as past experience with other Mac machines has often introduce additional challenges. However depending on suggestions as to the cause of the problem and a possible fix I may end up doing that

Thanks

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Dec 9, 2025 2:01 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

azaksalmarzur28

Level 4

1,056 points

Dec 11, 2025 12:29 AM in response to dana116

Reset the Apple ID sign-in state without updating macOS

Catalina stores Apple ID sign-in data in:

~/Library/Accounts
~/Library/Preferences/MobileMeAccounts.plist
system-level tokens in /private/var/db

You can reset just the local authentication state:

Step A — Sign out of iCloud (ignore the error)

Even though it errors, proceed.

Step B — Remove local Apple ID preference files

In Finder:

Go → Go to Folder → paste:


~/Library/Preferences

Move these files to the Desktop (do NOT delete yet):

com.apple.Accounts.plist
com.apple.iCloudHelper.plist
com.apple.preferences.accounts.plist
MobileMeAccounts.plist

Step C — Restart the Mac

macOS will regenerate clean preference files.

Try signing in/out again.

This fixes the issue for most Catalina users.

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Answer 2

dana116 Author

Level 1

12 points

Dec 11, 2025 8:03 AM in response to azaksalmarzur28

azaksalmarzur28

Thank you for the reply. I have read similar suggestions with slightly different lists of files to move on the web with mixed results. I have to ask, what will be the likely impact on the other system preferences in the System Preference Panel? Will they be result to factory defaults and will need to be re-entered?

TNX

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