Why can't I use my iCloud email address as my Apple ID

@Gailfrommaine, I think everyone knows that on this thread so your reply is not needed. It's those of us that have had apple id's a long time like have (8 years) and don't want to lose the hundreds of dollars spent on apps across platforms that are screwed by this issue.

You are not a moderator, so your opinion as to whether my responses are needed or not is irrelevant.

Apparently you concluded that I was recommending something. I was not. I was explaining that one can have an iCloud ID if they wish. Doing that does not mean that you will be losing "hundreds of dollars spent on apps"....

You can use the iCloud address for email and iCloud and your existing Apple ID for iTunes.

Get a grip.

GB

This is very annoying! I stopped using my original email address (that was used to create my Apple ID) and started using my iCloud address as my main email a long time ago. I did this because I plan to leave my ISP/cable company, which means I would lose that original email address. I'm sick and tired of having to monitor 8 different email addresses and want to consolidate them all to one or two. I want my iCloud address to be the only one and want to use it as my Apple ID, too. Apple continues to send all my receipts to my old address. Even if I have to keep my old email address as the Apple ID, at least let me change the email address to which they send all my billing notifications to my iCloud address!

Same issue. I've just started to deprecate my Gmail email address, and want to move my Apple ID/iCloud logins to my iCloud email address that I'm now using, but unable to. I find it hard to believe that Apple are unable to link an iCloud.com email address (which has never been used to sign in to any Apple service) to an existing Apple account/ID. Maybe one day .....

i have (xxx@icloud.com) as my icloud email. and in my apple id page its shows that (xxx@icloud.com) as YOUR PRIMARY EMAIL. and another (xxx@gmail) showing as YOUR APPLE ID.

now we are on age of IOS 10.2

so, is your suluation still work it out. or what you suggest me!

What do you mean you "used to have an iCloud.com email address"? Unless you are using a different Apple ID, then it is still linked to the one you are using. What makes you think you no longer have it?

GB

Your Apple ID is a gmail address. If you don't want it to be a gmail address, then set up another free email, and change your Apple ID to that email address. You can continue to use your iCloud.com address for your email, but your Apple ID will never be able to be an Apple domain address.

GB

What makes you think it is going to be "addressed"? This is how it works. If your Apple ID is not an Apple domain email address, it cannot be changed to an Apple domain address. If it is an Apple domain email address, it cannot be changed to anything else at all. What is the issue you are experiencing exactly?

GB

gail from maine wrote:

What makes you think it is going to be "addressed"? This is how it works. If your Apple ID is not an Apple domain email address, it cannot be changed to an Apple domain address. If it is an Apple domain email address, it cannot be changed to anything else at all. What is the issue you are experiencing exactly?

GB

I'm not sure if you are not understanding the issue or purposefully acting obtuse.

He wants to migrate away from gmail and to iCloud mail. He does not want to have to maintain multiple email accounts (he just wants to migrate into a single iCloud email and get rid of all other email addresses). Being able to change your Apple ID from xyz@gmail.com to xyz@icloud.com is technically simple to implement.

There are a lot of people who buy Apple products because Apple safeguards their users' privacy. So it's frustrating that Apple would insist that you continue to maintain an outside email address if you originally signed up with an outside email address. I'm not sure if you will get what I'm trying to say, but at least I gave it a shot.

"If you don't want it to be a gmail address, then set up another free email, and change your Apple ID to that email address."

Well, the email that one probably would want to use wouldn't be available and one would not be able to access purchased content. Just because that's how it's designed doesn't mean that it's a good design or cannot be changed. Pretty much every other service that I use let's me do that.

The issue here is that you don't understand how Apple IDs and emails work. You can have a gmail account as your Apple ID, and then not use it anymore, and it will still be your Apple ID. You can use your linked iCloud account as your primary email and only use that for emails. If you sign into iCloud and set up your email via iCloud, then you can have all of your mail sent to your iCloud.com address.

Maybe you should take a look at the post I provided several posts above the one you commented on. It's all explained there. Also, I have no idea why Apple has decided to protect Apple domain names, but they have. I also have no idea if it would be "technically simple" to change that approach....

You also can set up a brand new Apple ID as an iCloud.com email address. If you want to use that ID exclusively, you can set up Family Sharing with your old ID so that you will still have access to purchases done on your old Apple ID.

GB

I am not sure what you mean by "the email that one probably would want to use wouldn't be available". Why would you think that? And what does that have to do with anything? You do not have to use that email address for anything except your Apple ID. You can use your linked iCloud email address for email.

And if you edit your existing Apple account to that email, then your purchased content is a non-issue since you are using the same Apple account. You only lose access to purchases when you set up a brand new Apple ID.

And I didn't give an opinion as to whether it was a good design or not. It just is how it works, and it is not likely to change anytime soon.

Also, there is nothing that prevents you from setting up a new Apple ID with an iCloud email address, and then using that Apple ID for iCloud and iCloud functions like Mail, Messages, and FaceTime. Then you can still use your old ID for the iTunes & App Store.

Conversely, you can use Family Sharing as I have explained in the post above.

GB

Yeah this is really frustrating. I hope Apple fixes it soon so I can finally close my non-apple address. Thanks for your suggestion Gale but I'm not interested in creating a second Apple ID to manage the first one, lol. I just wanted to consolidate cleanly.

Is this still not possible? I have a @hotmail.com (Now migrated w/ legacy to Outlook) as my AppleId. I just want to use my @iCloud.com email address so I can close my legacy outlook email once and for all. It's currently an alias; I just want to make it my primary.

Gail, at this point I have to assume that you're trolling us. Of course we understand how it works. We just don't think that it should work this way and have described the issues it causes in earlier posts.