icloud: The maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone.

The Soluation is simple, Just ativate your apple icloud from your friens iphone and after that sign in to your device and you are done. Main reason is the icloud account activation, all apple device can activate not more than 3 ID(Actually its not the ID but the the ID accociated with Icloud), So, you need to activate your account from other apple product, Once your ID is activated it can be use in any apple product 1st hand or 2nd hand.....

Any advice here, I am the original owner of my iPhone 5. I had problems and apple advisors have had me reset as new twice now. I didn't realize there was a problem until one advisor ask me to turn on "Find My iPhone" when I attempt to go into iCloud it asks for my account and told me I had exceeded the maximum number of free accounts. I've never actually signed up for an account, I guess when you activate the phone it automatically does it. Who should be responsible for that, I certainly didn't want to reset my phone as new twice and now I can use some of the features thanks to Apple Advisors.

Lisa

This CAN BE FIXED!!!! CALL THE APPLE STORE

Before you say anything, I had the same problem as the thread. I bought a used Iphone and the previous owner made THREE Icloud accounts, so I couldn't sign-in. I called the store and they walked me through how to override the ICloud "too many accounts" situation. You do need another apple device to follow their instructions with since the whole process can't be done on the used phone if the Icloud is maxed-out.

They're not so cheap that they don't wanna assisst people that buy used phones from somewhere else. In my opinion, they're still going to make money off you if you set up the Icloud because you're going to buy content like music, videos etc, and put them on there. Also, if they set up your I cloud you might want more storage space, so there's $20 right there just for the next level after free.

Good luck

<Edited by Host>

Hello Im new to Apple gadgets so i didn't know that there was a limited accounts.. because i used android phone and you can make as long as you like accounts there so i didnt know.. and reach my limit my iphone is new and has no account yet and already reached the limit .. is it possible to sign in again after a couple of days?

Thanks so much Whothedaddy.... Works great for my friend! Awesome!!! 😎

Whothedaddy wrote:

Hi I have the answer

It's not going to work if you only have the 1 device that is second hand and used all the accounts.

I have 3GS / I4/ ipad1

I had same problem with my secondhand iPad.

But my 3GS I brought new.

So all you have to do is setup iCloud on any iPhone or iPad that has not been setup to iCloud or has remaining setup for iCloud and then sign in on blocked device.

And hay presto it will let you in.

I've done this with all my devices and all work fine.

Good luck

Manace03 wrote:

You can also go create your account online at appleid.apple.com/account then use it on the iPad.

Nonsense. That creates an Apple ID. You can have as many of those as you can be bothered to create. The protracted discussion in this thread is about iCloud accounts.

As has already been established, once any device has created three iCloud accounts it can't create any more. The workaround is to create a new iCloud account on another device. Then you can sign into it on the first device (and the device you used can of course create only two more accounts).

Right, that could be it.

I created the new apple ID on my PC at iCloud.com, then signed into iCloud.com with it from there - assuming that was all I had to do, and there was no problems at this stage.

I've now downloaded iCloud for Windows, which won't let me sign in until I've used the new Apple ID to set up iCloud on an iOS device (which it's not letting me do - and I only have the one Apple device).

Here's a screenshot, signed in iCloud.com with the new Apple ID:

Just discovered this problem as I handed over an old computer to someone. I checked out the Apple legal terms and conditions for iCloud, in the third paragraph of REQUIREMENTS FOR USE OF THE SERVICE :

"Apple reserves the right to limit the number of Accounts that may be created from a device and the number of devices associated with an Account."

http://www.apple.com/legal/icloud/en/terms.html

I guess Apple wanted to cut third hand macs out of the iCloud loop.

I actually just found my post from long ago.

"Mar 10, 2016 5:45 PM Re: icloud: The maximum number of free accounts have been activated on this iPhone.in response to MrLOVER

So I just came across this issue for the 1st time a few days ago when giving my aunt an iPhone 5 (iOS 9.2.1) that I got from a friend. I Googled a bit of info on a fix and couldn't find anything that would work. I ended up fixing the issue myself and I'm sure this fix will work for others as long as you have another device on the same iOS. I originally backed up all her data from an Android phone to the iPhone 5 using the move to iOS option. This is not mandatory. I then backed up the iPhone 5 to iTunes. After that, I restored that back up to an iPhone 4S running the same software version. I was able to log into iCloud, turn it on, as well as the find my iPhone option on the 4S phone. I then backed up the 4S to iTunes, and then restored that back up to the iPhone 5. After the back up was finished, the phone was now connected to and asked me to log into the iCloud account associated with the iPhone 5."

I have 2 questions:

1. I did make a new iCloud account on an iMac, but unfortunately if I tried to sign in on the iPad the error message came back. Why is this?
   
2. If you use another iDevice for "activating", do you also lose one possibility to create a new iCloud-account on that device?
   

A quick google search makes it appear as though this is related to a problem with the embedded serial number in the device (iDevice or Mac) that is trying to create an account.

It's entirely possible there is a "problem" with the phone. Maybe it was repaired by a 3rd party, or jailbroken/hacked.

Is the phone Jailbroken or hacked to unlock it?

MrLOVER wrote:

...My iPhone is Factory unlocked and it is now jailbrocken...

Whether jailbreaking is the problem or not is moot.

Jailbroken devices can not be discussed here. It is a violation of the terms of use for these forums.

This has less to do with the phone, more to do with apple keeping an association between the device's ID number, and the Apple IDs that had been used on it. no relation to the phone being Jailbroken or not being reset. How may one remove the Apple ID from the Serial number's list of previously used Apple IDs?

Thank you TooDarkPark for your reply. Other threads talked about having motherboard replaced or an issue with the serial numbers, none of which was true in my case. I wonder what the issue is that they cant delete an iCloud account once its been generated. I can understand a limit of 3 accounts per device but why there isnt a way to remove them from the device and the Cloud isnt very practical.

At the very least there should be some documentation available about the limit so this can be avoided whenever possible. Im setting up several ipads to be used in a library and now this one is hosed so I cant use it for the project that it is intended to be used for. Its wasting valuable and scarce $$.