can you merge 2 icloud accounts?

Thank you Randers. This was quite helpful and I was able to migrate my date and unify my apple ids. 🙂

QuickTime, a remarkably unhelpful reply. Instead of brushing someone off, please explain yourself. Doing so in a sympathetic manner would be helpful as well.

You can migrate the data from account 1 and merge it with the data in account 2, but you can't bring the email account(s) from account 1 with you. To do this, you must first sign into account 1 on one of your iOS devices. If it is currently sign into account 1, you must first save any photos in your my photo stream album to your camera roll (unless they are already there) or you will lose them. This is done by opening the photo stream album in the thumbnail view, tapping Edit, tap all the photos you want to save, tap Share, then tap Save to Camera Roll. Next, go to Settings>iCloud and tap Delete Account, and when promted choose Delete from My iDevice. This deletes the account and synced data from your device but not from iCloud.

Now go to Settings>iCloud, enter the ID and password for account 1 and tap Sign In. Then turn on your iCloud data syncing to sync the data in account 1 to your device. When finished, tap Delete Account, and when prompted, choose Keep on My iDevice.

Next, sign into account 2 again, turn on your iCloud data syncing, and when prompted, choose Merge to merge the data on your device (from account 1) with the data in account 2. If you want to continue to use an email account from account 1, you'll have to set it up on your device by going to Settings>Mail,Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>iCloud, sign into account 1, then turn Mail to On. This will only be fetch (not push), as push email is only supported in the primary account (account 2).

You can't delete account 1, you can simply choose not to use it any more. If you really want to delete the data in account 1, you'll have to go to icloud.com on your computer, sign into account 1 and manually delete it.

Per the original post, I too have a similar problem. Randers, I really appreciate your detailed instructions and effort to help. Thank you. It is much appreciated by non-technical people like myself.

What gives me pause is that I am worried about losing data in the transition. I've backed up the contacts and calendar databases. But there is so much else that icloud syncs. I'm not sure what to do.

I've been to the genius bar, and they ended up syncing my macbook pro, ipad and iphone to three different accounts. I am hesitant to return to them.

What I believe I would like to do is merge all data into one account, perhaps the @icloud.com email address. Is it possible for me to do this without losing data? As a point of information, I have my own email associated with my web domain, as well a gmail, so I do not think that I need to change anything there (or am I wrong).

Thank you all in advance for any advice you can share.

Cheers!

The only data you can't migrate is your iCloud email account and its associated messages, your photo stream and your iWork documents (if any). However, you can save the photo stream photos to your camera roll before deleting the account (by opening the photo stream album in the thumbnail view, tapping Edit, tap all the photos you want to save, tap Share, then tap Save to Camera Roll), so you won't lose those. You can also save any iWork documents before deleting the account. You can also forward email sent to your existing iCloud email account to the email account associated with the account you will be migrating to by going to icloud.com, signing into the existing account, opening Mail, clicking on the Actions (gear shaped) icon on the upper right, then on the General tab entering your forwarding address. This way you will really only be leaving behind except existing email messages stored in the existing account. You don't need to do anything about non-iCloud email accounts such as Gmail our your web domain as these are not synced with iCloud anyway.

Other synced data such as Contacts and Calendars can be migrated to the new account by choosing Keep On My iDevice after deleting the account, the choosing Merge after signing into the the new account and turning your iCloud syncing back on. If the data on your Mac is the same as the data on your phone (such as having the same contacts and calendars) you can just choose to not keep the data when you sign out of the existing account on your Mac as it will be synced back from the account you migrate to when you sign back in. (Or, to make things easier, you can just choose the account your Mac is syncing with as the account you migrate your iPad and iPhone to. Then you won't need to change anything on your Mac.)

ID's and accounts can't be merged.

You're welcome.