You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: CongoBill
CongoBill Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

My AOL address is my Apple ID - why am I being told to change it?

My AOL address is my Apple ID and I have been receiving emails that look very suspicious (a few of them I've found in my spam folder) that tell me I need to change my AOL Apple ID by end of March 2015. I now see it appears to be legit since there is a page on the Apple site about it. So I changed my Apple ID to my gmail address. Is that all I have to do? I don't want to lose access to all my purchases made with my AOL Apple ID. This is really confusing and the documentation Apple has provided regarding this is very unclear.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Mar 29, 2015 4:02 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: gail from maine
gail from maine
User level: Level 9
52,657 points

Posted on Mar 30, 2015 4:32 PM

Was your AOL Apple ID your actual AOL User Name or was it your AOL email address? The change that is required by the 31st is for people who are still using their AOL User Name for their Apple ID. In that case, the Apple ID needs to be changed to a valid email address. That can be a valid AOL email address or any other valid email address that is not currently being used for an Apple ID.


If you changed your Apple ID to a Gmail address, you are going to need to sign out of:


iTunes & App Store

FaceTime

Messages

iCloud


And sign back in again with your updated ID.


If you did not sign out of iCloud on your iOS device prior to changing your ID, you will have to change it back to the old ID in order to sign out of iCloud. If you need to do this, do NOT verify the address when you change it back. When you sign out of iCloud (after changing your Apple ID back to the old Apple ID), use your current Apple ID password when asked for a password. Sign out of the rest of your apps as indicated above, and then go back to Manage your Apple ID and change your Apple ID back to your new ID. Then go back into all of them and sign in with the new ID.


Cheers,


GB

View in context
3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: gail from maine
gail from maine
User level: Level 9
52,657 points

Mar 30, 2015 4:32 PM in response to CongoBill

Was your AOL Apple ID your actual AOL User Name or was it your AOL email address? The change that is required by the 31st is for people who are still using their AOL User Name for their Apple ID. In that case, the Apple ID needs to be changed to a valid email address. That can be a valid AOL email address or any other valid email address that is not currently being used for an Apple ID.


If you changed your Apple ID to a Gmail address, you are going to need to sign out of:


iTunes & App Store

FaceTime

Messages

iCloud


And sign back in again with your updated ID.


If you did not sign out of iCloud on your iOS device prior to changing your ID, you will have to change it back to the old ID in order to sign out of iCloud. If you need to do this, do NOT verify the address when you change it back. When you sign out of iCloud (after changing your Apple ID back to the old Apple ID), use your current Apple ID password when asked for a password. Sign out of the rest of your apps as indicated above, and then go back to Manage your Apple ID and change your Apple ID back to your new ID. Then go back into all of them and sign in with the new ID.


Cheers,


GB

Reply

My AOL address is my Apple ID - why am I being told to change it?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up