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

ARB-82

Thanks for your update... it is very helpful.

However, given that it was provided 2 years ago, I was hoping things might have changed.

I still can't do it.

Your point 3...

"3. You can in fact change your primary email address, so that communications regarding your Apple ID actually goes to a different email address than that of the primary AppleID. This cannot be done by users, but only by request and only if Apple approves your request."

Could you give instructions on how to do it, who to contact exactly?

Rolomoto wrote:

I'm missing something. I would like to use my icloud email exclusively but oddly, all apple emails e.g. responses to this thread get sent to my apple Id email (which is now gmail and which I don't use). You say they are interchangeable but I don't see that. How can I get apple communications sent to my icloud email?

Have you looked in your iCloud email account to see if they are there as well? If you don't have your iCloud email account set up on your devices or computer, go to iCloud.com on a computer via a browser, sign in with your gmail or your iCloud ID, and check to see if the mail is there as well.

Cheers,

GB

gail from maine wrote:

Rolomoto wrote:

I'm missing something. I would like to use my icloud email exclusively but oddly, all apple emails e.g. responses to this thread get sent to my apple Id email (which is now gmail and which I don't use). You say they are interchangeable but I don't see that. How can I get apple communications sent to my icloud email?

Have you looked in your iCloud email account to see if they are there as well?

Cheers,

GB

I can't speak for Rolomoto, but I have looked on my account, and they're not. Apple communications are only sent to the "primary" address, which is *not* an address I want to use for anything other than emergency recovery. Which, incidentally, I would rather do via a text message to my phone than by having another e-mail account I never use, but that has nothing to do with this thread :-)

Until I'm wrong, my understanding is that with an icloud Apple ID (and email), you can setup additional icloud aliases for other email purposes only (which can even be disabled/re-enabled for specific usage). That is a big plus. With a non-icloud Apple ID, the icloud email address created with the iphone/ipad/itunes setup, is really just an alias.

OK, so you are indicating that you went to iCloud.com on your browser, signed in to iCloud with your @iCloud.com email address, clicked on you Mail Inbox, and did not see the same emails that you see with your primary email address?

I just looked at mine, and all of the exact same emails, including Apple communications are showing.

Cheers,

GB

Exactly. For example, I set up Family sharing between my primary @me.com account (which actually does work as desired, but was set up so long ago I have no idea what I did differently) and this new one (which is for my wife), and the "Welcome to Family Sharing" e-mail *only* went to the primary, non-iCloud e-mail. I then signed in to iCloud in the browser on a different computer using the @icloud.com email, which of course generated the standard "Your Apple ID was used to sign in to iCloud via a web browser" message - but again, it only went to the primary e-mail on the account, not the @icloud.com e-mail.

Perhaps there is a setting that would send such messages to both, as you indicate happens for you, but this really doesn't solve the issue. The "Primary" e-mail on this account is mine. The purpose of setting up this AppleID, however, was to give my wife her own e-mail. While it would be perfectly acceptable, even desirable, for my e-mail to be an emergency recovery address on her account, I certainly don't want to be receiving her e-mails on my account in general!

I am currently using my Apple for pretty much everything, and it is not a matter of using an inactive email account as your Apple ID, as apple still have to send you receipts for any of your purchases.

Hopefully Apple could resolve this issue as it is quite irritating considering I'm already such a heavy apple user at the moment

Sorry, but not sure what you are referring to? There is no issue to "resolve" - this is the way it works.

If your Apple ID email is no longer active, you can get a free email from many sources - Gmail and Yahoo just to name a couple.

Cheers,

GB

gail from maine wrote:

Sorry, but not sure what you are referring to? There is no issue to "resolve" - this is the way it works.

If your Apple ID email is no longer active...

Just because something works a specific way, doesn't mean there isn't an issue with how it works. The "issue", in this case, is that a) Only the primary e-mail receives official apple communications, and b) there is no way to make the @icloud.com e-mail primary. So no, you can't just sign up for a free e-mail account and then not use it (which I believe is what ericlee11 is referring to when they say "inactive e-mail account"), because you still have to check it for official communications. This IS an issue (even IF this is the way it works), and as ericlee11 says, is quite irritating.

LACAllen wrote:

So, one can switch the email address associated with their Apple ID from a valid @gmail.com, @hotmail.com email address and so on, to an @icloud.com one time.

Can't even do it one time. In order to even have an iCloud.com email address, it has to be set up under an existing ID that is not an Apple domain address, or has to have been set up initially as an iCloud Apple account (in which case, there would be no need to change it). If you try to edit a non-Apple domain email address to an iCloud email address, it just goes out into the ether. It will not change it.

GB

I may be wrong, but in the case where the AppleID is a non apple domain email address (my case), an icloud.com domain email address is NOT necessarily an Apple ID. It is an ALIAS associated to the non-apple AppleID. And those (I have a few), are supposedly used as contact backup (but I don't recall ever receiving anything on them from Apple). Of course, if one has created a second AppleID with an Apple domain on another device, that is possible.

However, I would appreciate if you could explain or provide a reference/link to the how of this : "So, one can switch the email address associated with their AppleID from a valid @gmail.com .... to an @icloud.com email ONE TIME."

THank you.

gail from maine wrote:

Seems like an easier way to do this would be to be able to have an indicator on the Apple account for which email you want your Apple communications to go to....

GB

That would certainly do it, yes. Then I could just ignore the "primary" e-mail account from the free provider that I never wanted anyway.

So far the best solution I have come up with is using a gmail account as the primary and putting a forward on it.

Is there a way to delete an apple ID such that it can be re-used? If I could do that, then I could re-create it from an iOS device so the @icloud *is* primary. Would have been nice to know this limitation *before* I created the e-mail I wanted, but water under the bridge, as they say...

Is there a way to delete an apple ID such that it can be re-used? If I could do that, then I could re-create it from an iOS device so the @icloud *is* primary.

No. This is not supported by Apple. You can request perhaps get the deletion, but you can't recycle the Apple ID.

No, sorry, but can't do that either. The only option you have with a non-Apple domain email address is to EDIT it to a different non-Apple domain email address, unless you want to do the following:

Continue to use the current gmail address (or any other non-Apple domain email address that you might EDIT it to) for your iTunes sign in so that you continue to have access to all of your iTunes purchases, then go to any iOS device and sign it out of iCloud, then set up a new iCloud email address there to be used for Mail, iCloud, FaceTime, and Messages.

The only thing you would want to make sure you do prior to signing your existing ID out of iCloud and signing the new iCloud account in would be to make sure you save your iCloud Notes, if you still want them to be on your device/computer. They would, of course still be accessible when you sign into iCloud.com with the non-Apple domain iCloud account, but if you need them on your device, you would move them. When you sign out of the existing iCloud account on your device, it will ask if you want to keep a copy of Calendars, Contacts, Reminders, and Safari bookmarks on your device, so you can elect to keep those and then Merge them to the new iCloud account when you sign in. Notes, however, would need to be copied to your iPhone locally, then copied back, which can be done right in the Notes app itself by clicking on EDIT in the iCloud Notes list, then selecting all of the notes you want to Move, then selecting the Move option at the bottom to move them to a local Notes folder.

Cheers,

GB

LACAllen wrote:

Is there a way to delete an apple ID such that it can be re-used? If I could do that, then I could re-create it from an iOS device so the @icloud *is* primary.

No. This is not supported by Apple. You can request perhaps get the deletion, but you can't recycle the Apple ID.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. So because I didn't know that you had to create the account from an iOS device for the @icloud email to be primary, and I set up the @icloud e-mail I wanted under a non-cloud appleid, I'm now stuck with no way to get the e-mail I want. Great 😝