iMessage, iCloud between multiple family devices, with a single apple I'd?

how do you change the icloud if you already entered your apple id on all of your devices??? ahhhh!!

on the apple support it says to have two apple id's one for store purchases and one for icloud. i wish i knew this before setting up all the devices with the same id!

Brian Findlay wrote:

Americaneon:

how do you change the icloud if you already entered your apple id on all of your devices??? ahhhh!!

You can access these under settings on iphone etc. One area for store - your purchase apple id, one area for icloud (another area for imessage)

I need to know how to do this too. My wife and I share an iCloud email address that is our Apple id for all iTunes, App Store, etc. services. We purchased a family pack .Mac account and I use a separate sub account email address which is my iCloud account on my phone, she uses the shared address on her phone. I've set up calendar sharing for both accounts so we can see all our joint and individual events or not if we wish. However on my iPad I originally set everything up with the shared email/Apple id address. If I use the Message app on it to send a message to her phone it comes through with her name on it because the shared address is the "caller id" on the iPad.

What I would like to do is set my iPad up with my separate sub account email address that I use on my phone so that they would sync together and messages from the iPad would be identified as me. However in settings it doesn't let you change that iCloud id. And in Messages settings you can't change the Apple id nor can you delete that address on the next screen. If I try to add my sub account address on the "Add Another Email" screen I get an error message that says that address is already in use and can not be verified. Any suggestions?

In another thread I found the reason I'm getting the error message when I try to enter that other email address. I us that address on my laptop for Facetime. My wife uses the shared adress on her computers for Facetime. Since I'm using that on my mac it pops up as being in use on my iPad in Messages. Have no idea how to get around that one.

Well I solved the Message error problem. I just logged out of FaceTime on my laptop which I was using that sub account email address for and then I was able to enter that address for Messages on my iPad with no error issues. Now the messages go out identified as me not my wife. Only now I'll have to use or create another email address/ id if I want to use FaceTime on my laptop. An issue for another day.

I think you can do the same thing with iMessage. Use your individual apple ID and add you emails to it. Still need to prove but think it will work.

Seems like a good idea. However, when I do this and create a new iCloud account, on my iPhone, I am not allowed to change the account in the iCloud setting. The account is grayed out. Any thoughts?

Any suggestions?

Samt14 intrested in your answer to Brian Findlay I want to do the same thing I have one iphone 5 and about to get another for wife will I have to set up the second phone as a new phone or as exsiting wife has on itunes account

Hi all, perhaps I can help. My family has 3 iphones, two ipads, and two Touches. we also use iMessage ratherthan having an ATT texting plan, so needless to say we've experimented with this quite a bit. and the good news is there's a LOT of flexibility to how you can get different messages going to different devices. So first to answer one big question, which is:

"how do you change the icloud if you already entered your apple id on all of your devices??? ahhhh!!"

For iMessage specifically, go into SETTINGS - MESSAGES. and turn iMessage OFF. Then turn it on again. Once you do, the next box down says "User your AppleID for iMessage". Click that box, and you can change the appleID if you wish.

Okay next, the way to get different messages going different places is by using the "Send & Receive" box a couple of spaces down in the settings window. There, in each device, you can choose to which phone numbers and email addresses within that iCloud account you want messages to go to. For example, my phone receives messages to my cell number and my primary email address. So does my iPad. My wife, however, only wants texts to go to her phone, so she has her phone number only listed on her phone. On her iPad, she has an email address listed which is handy when I know she's on her iPad and I want to text her.

One last thing. In the Messages settings there's a box entitled "Send as SMS" and another labelled "MMS Messaging". If you don't pay for a texting account, turn those off so non iCloudians cannot text you and run up your texting bill.

under my send and recieve box....my son's phone number has appeared and had a check mark beside it. I unchecked it but his number is still there...why? we just set him up with his own apple id so he shouldn't be on mine...

I had some serious issues getting the three devices iMac, iPad, and iPhone to keep track of the same iMessage thread. Here is how I fixed it.

1. In the iMessage Preferences (iMac), and the Settings/iMessage (iPad and iPhone) I made sure that each one of the devices uses the same Apple ID for the iMessage application.

2. Then on all the iMessage apps on all devices under "Send & Receive" in the section entitled "You can be reached by iMessage at: ..." to have at least one common email address (same one.) Please remember that if you select (checked) any one of the non-shared email addresses you will not be able to switch devices and keep following the same chat thread.

3. Finally - and most importantly - is to make sure that on the iPhone "Start new conversations from: " points to the same - checked - email address you used in all devices in step 2...

Also note that any phone number or email address that you add to any one of the devices will show up in all.

Summary: Same Apple ID and same email address on all devices will allow for a smooth chat thread synching and device switching.