SadBoy55
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Old Apple id Account

The App store often prompts me to sign in using a very old email address for which I do not have a password, particularly for updates.  As the email account no longer exists, I can't get the password.  I deleted all of my Apps (as I read that Apps remain 'attached' to the Apple id at the time of purchase), and reinstalled them (using my current Apple id email address) but the problem persists.  Does anyone know where this old email address sits in my system so I can remove it?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Dec 5, 2015 11:05 AM

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SadBoy55

Q: Old Apple id Account

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  • by Dah•veed,

    Dah•veed Dah•veed Dec 5, 2015 12:13 PM in response to SadBoy55
    Level 7 (34,765 points)
    Mac App Store
    Dec 5, 2015 12:13 PM in response to SadBoy55

    Any content that you acquired using that Apple ID has the ID encoded in the licensed copy downloaded to your Mac. So perhaps there is still an app or two obtained by this Apple ID on your HDD or a mounted drive or a partition.

     

    Late 2012 Mac mini, OS X El Capitan 10.11.1; Apple Watch, 38 mm silver AL, Watch OS 2.0.1; iPad Air 2 & iPhone 6+, iOS 9.1

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Dec 5, 2015 2:28 PM in response to SadBoy55
    Level 10 (207,995 points)
    Applications
    Dec 5, 2015 2:28 PM in response to SadBoy55

    App Store products can only be updated by signing in to the store with the same Apple ID that was originally used to download them. You can't update anything, including your own purchases, as long as there are pending updates linked to another ID.

    If you can't sign in with the other ID, you have to delete all the apps that are linked to it. If you don't know which apps those are, please see below.

    1. Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:

    kMDItemAppStoreHasReceipt=1

    Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

    2. In the Finder, press command-F to open a search window, or select

              File ▹ Find

    from the menu bar. In the search window, select

              Search: This Mac

    from the row of tokens below the toolbar. Below that is a popup menu of search criteria, initially showing Kind. From that menu, select

              Other...

    A sheet will drop down. In that sheet, select

              Raw Query

    as the criterion, then click OK or press return.

    Now there will be a text box to the right of the menu of search criteria. That's where you enter the raw search query. Click in that box and paste the text you copied earlier by pressing command-V.

    3. The search window will now show all the App Store products that are installed. Compare those search results with the list of your purchases from the App Store. To see the complete list, you may need to unhide hidden purchases. If any apps were downloaded from the App Store using other Apple ID's that you control, sign in to the store under each of those ID's and check the purchases.

    4. At least one of the apps in the Spotlight search results is not among your purchases in the App Store. Delete each such item by following the instructions in the Apple Support article linked above.

    5. Quit and relaunch the App Store.

    If you find these instructions confusing, ask for an alternative method.