Primary and Secondary iCloud ids AND resulting multiple calendars / contacts

Question

Primary and Secondary iCloud ids AND resulting multiple calendars / contacts

I have tried to find this question answered but haven't been able to find an answer to this point... Thanks in advance for your insights. Here is ths situation:

I am registered with iCloud using my longstanding primary appled id based upon my hotmail address. When signing my devices and Mac up to iCloud I responded to the prompt and created a me.com email address so I could begin using iCloud mail on my devices and Mac. I am successfully syncing my iCLoud mail (me.com), notes, contacts, reminders, calendar and photostream across my devices and Mac.

In my Mac iCLoud preferences tab I have all the approproiate serivices selected (notes, calendar etc).

In the Mail / Contacts / Calendars preferences tab on the Mac I notice though that I have two iCLoud accounts showing, the primary one (linked to my hotmail account) with all services ticked and the secondary one (attributed to my new me.com account). The second iCLoud account has mail / contacts / calendar ticked also. and a note saying that only the primary one can support some services (eg photostream) - makes sense.

Here is my question and source of confusion:

1) I therefore have my primary and secondary iCloud account mail / contacts / calendars showing as separate iCloud accounts preferences though I don't see anything duplicated. Is the secondary iCloud mail / calendar / contacts just another 'reference' to the primary one or is there a second calendar and contact list underlying it?

2) Can I and should I delete the secondary iCloud contacts / calendars account from system preferences using the minus sign? If I do this will I still get the me.com mail through the primary iCloud account?

Hope this makes sense.

thanks

Posted on Jan 12, 2012 2:00 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 12, 2012 4:07 AM in response to Jared Andrews

Y should have a@me address associated with your primary account, it's not clear whether you intend having 2 @me addresses.

As for deleting the secondary account, check whether you are using the mail address, calendars and contacts and if not you can delete it.

You can see if you are using the email address in mail, in address book click on the red ribbon and check if you have any contacts under the second iCloud account, in iCal click on the calendars button to see if you have any calendars in the second account.

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Answer 2

Jan 12, 2012 4:38 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Thank you. In Addressbook and iCal I only see a single account, the (I assume main) iCloud one, In mail I only have a single iCloud account. This is the confusion. The secondary account is shown in the system preferences but I don't see anything in the apps themselves.

I have my main apple id (a hotmail one) associated with iCloud and one me.com account which is the secondary iCloud account that was set-up as I signed up to iCloud.

So the email I see in my primary / only iCloud account in mail is associated with the me.com address or secondary apple id.

The contacts and calendars i see in the apps are assocaiated with my main and primary apple id.

Preferences implies a second set of contact etc associated with the secondary iCloud account but the only place I see any reference to these is in the preferences panel on the Mac, I don't see them anywhere in the apps.

I willinclude some screenshots later on when I'm at home where the Mac is.

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Answer 3

Jan 12, 2012 9:31 AM in response to Jared Andrews

Check system preferences > mail, contacts & calendars >secondary account and see which services are enabled.

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Answer 4

Jan 12, 2012 9:46 AM in response to Winston Churchill

All 3 are enabled here which is why I'm confused. What is the relationship of these 3 accounts (linked to my alternative id me.com) to the equivalents in my primary iCLoud (hotmail apple id)? I imagined that they were pure synonyms if you like - the only reason I created the me.com email address was to allow me to play around with icloud mail properly.

The mail on this secondary icloud acct (me.com) is already showing in the mail app under iCloud. The contacts and calendars could I suppose be different calendars but ntg shows up in the relevant apps.

If i go to unclick any of these I get a warning about deleting info on the Mac which is where I stopped and posted. I was on the point of deleting the entire acct from this window using the '-' but then worried that this would take out my mail and or contacts and calendars on my primary acct.

Appreciate help.

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Answer 5

Jan 12, 2012 10:22 AM in response to Jared Andrews

When they are checked they enable syncing in the related application, for example the checking of calendars in the photo above enables the syncing of my Karting Events calendar in the photo above that.

You may not see these additional iCloud accounts if there are no contacts or calendars within them.

If you check in addressbook preferences > general > default account, you should be able to see what accounts are available.

If you go File > new calendar in iCal you should get the option of setting which account the new calendar will be placed into, this should tell you what accounts are being used.

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Answer 6

Jan 12, 2012 10:42 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Thnak you, appreciate it. I will have an experiment.

Thinking about this though, In your scenario in the photos above is your primary apple id / icloud address a me.com address? I can see in that case that there would be a set of mail / calendar / contacts for both your primary and secondary accounts.

In my case the primary is a hotmail based apple id and the secondary is me.com. iCloud will only do anything with the me.com account so I'm not sure how the mail tick boxes in both the primary and secondary accounts differ.

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Answer 7

Jan 12, 2012 1:08 PM in response to Jared Andrews

It turns out that the applications Mail & Notes, Contacts and Calendars shown under my primary apple id / icloud account and those shown under the secondary me.com are completely synonymous and one and the same thing.

If I uncheck any of the apps in the secondary window for example and remove from the Mac, the equivalent checkbox in the primary beomes unchecked also. Similarly if I add say calendars back into the primary iCloud window, then the appointments come back down to the cloud and the next time i go to the prefs the equiv box is rechecked in the secondary options also.....

I guess this is all because my primary apple id and icloud account is not a me.com account.

User uploaded file

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Answer 8

Jan 12, 2012 2:11 PM in response to Jared Andrews

My primary account has a non @me ID too, lets say it's winston@hotmail, the associated @me address is say winston@me, my secondary account is an icloud account where my ID is an @me address, lets say it's wc@me. Hopefully that explains my situation (it's not a good idea to post actual addresses here.

Are you saying that your primary account has an ID of say ja@hotmail with an associated @me address of ja@me and your secondary account has an ID of ja@me (the same @me address as associated with your primary account)

By the way are you aware that you can use either your primary address (ja@hotmail) or your associated @me address (ja@me) as your ID for logging in.

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Answer 9

Jan 12, 2012 2:30 PM in response to Winston Churchill

My apple id and primary email is ja@hotmail say. I signed up to icloud with this. My alterative email which I set up to enable icloud mail is ja@me say. I think in reality they alternative me email is tied to the primary email as i explained above from the behaviour of the tabs.

Everything works fine in fact, i have a single set of icloud mail, contacts, calendar etc perfect synced across my mac and devices. Just trying to understand why the preferences look as they do.

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Answer 10

Jan 12, 2012 2:52 PM in response to Jared Andrews

In your example above what ID are you using for the secondary account, it's not ja@me is it.

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Answer 11

Jan 12, 2012 3:00 PM in response to Winston Churchill

A secondary icloud account is not something i have ever set up or added at least consciously, it just shows in the prefernces with the ja@me ID. I created the ja@me ID when i enabled iCloud mail, the mac said I needed to create a me acct to enable icloud mail.

In the apple id maintenance screen the terminology it uses is ja@hotmail is my primary email and apple id. The ja@me is an alternative email.

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Answer 12

Jan 12, 2012 3:20 PM in response to Jared Andrews

Interesting, I assume that you don't actually need that account as a secondary account then, although since when you uncheck the sync options they also uncheck the corresponding service in your primary account that it might be best not to delete it, because it may have unexpected concequences.

Rather odd though, I didn't have anything like that before adding my secondary accounts.

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