Apple Now Lets You Move Digital Purchases From One Apple Account to Another

[tothemoonsands]

I think Apple was uncertain how many users actually cared to migrate - and hopefully they found out that in fact many are passionate about it.

They made a great first step, now double down and make the tools to allow users to fix whatever they need to migrate. Delete Music Data tool, etc.

 

[One2Manycats]

I would argue that for most people migration worked and that only a relatively small number of people cannot migrate. I’ve had 2 Apple accounts for 17 years and was able to migrate without issue. I’ve never used my iCloud account for anything but iCloud.

Well, you might be right. I can only assume subscription products like Apple Music, Apple One, and iTunes Match are used by many. Even if you only used one of these products briefly in past years you are supposedly out of luck. This will exclude a lot of people.

Some people have started covering this, but it has been more on the quiet side for sure:

I’m not convinced this Apple Account tool actually does anything - 9to5Mac

Fifteen days ago, Apple released a tool for iPhone and iPad that allegedly allows you to migrate purchases from one...

9to5mac.com

I have been participating in the Apple Discussions forum, nearly every single post I have made has been deleted or modified. All of my posts have been identified as unhelpful. Every once in a while a post from a user sneaks through and I see it by email before it gets deleted. They must have deleted 100 posts by now.

 

[zbugrkx]

At least on my side, assuming the apple tech guy was correct, I know the issue is music libraries.

But without a way to « back it up » then delete it, migrate, restore it. I’m stuck.

When I gave up a while ago and moved to using only one account on iphones, with the original one added as a family member to purchase share, i had spent huge amount of hours to copy, add to library and what not my music… as i’ve been curating stuff ever since itunes match and music exists.. I don’t want to lose it all.

 

[Morac]

Well, you might be right. I can only assume subscription products like Apple Music, Apple One, and iTunes Match are used by many. Even if you only used one of these products briefly in past years you are supposedly out of luck. This will exclude a lot of people.

The problem is using one of those products on your primary account, not your secondary account. I’ve subscribed to both iTunes Match and Apple Music on my secondary account in the past and was able to migrate. I even had an active Apple Music subscription on my secondary account when I migrated.

I never had iTunes Match or Apple Music on my primary account before though which actually led to a weird case where I ended up with 2 active Apple Music subscriptions because I tried to redeem a 3 month trial to see if it would add to my migrated subscription and instead it created a new one.

Based on what was previously posted here, my guess is most if not all people having migration problems at some point in the past accidentally enabled iTunes Match and/or Apple Music on their primary account and then used that account on a Mac which will upload songs in your music library not available in iTunes to Apple. That is most likely what is meant by having an iTunes library on your account.

 

[jimthing]

Well, you might be right. I can only assume subscription products like Apple Music, Apple One, and iTunes Match are used by many. Even if you only used one of these products briefly in past years you are supposedly out of luck. This will exclude a lot of people.

Some people have started covering this, but it has been more on the quiet side for sure:

I’m not convinced this Apple Account tool actually does anything - 9to5Mac

Fifteen days ago, Apple released a tool for iPhone and iPad that allegedly allows you to migrate purchases from one...

9to5mac.com

I have been participating in the Apple Discussions forum, nearly every single post I have made has been deleted or modified. All of my posts have been identified as unhelpful. Every once in a while a post from a user sneaks through and I see it by email before it gets deleted. They must have deleted 100 posts by now.

^This.

@Morac
When I said threads are all across various Apple forums on my previous post, I meant both Apple's official forums –where this 'posts deletion' has been happening by Apple staff there (the reason why MR forums are so popular, lol!)– but also all the other Apple news sites with forums, including 9to5mac (who also bothered to make a whole article about it), and all the others.

Anyway, the main problems remain:

1. When migration fails, users are left with no clear idea as to why. Even if it is a music library issue, nothing tells them that. It's so complicated a system, that even Apple tech staff are typically clueless.

2. The music library problem shouldn't have been one in the first place. Apple full well know many users have previously subscribed under their primary account (often years ago), yet they made a migration system that still blocks them (years later).

There's still time to fix these issues, so they should be doing so, but are they? (I bet not)

 

[Morac]

^This.

@Morac
When I said threads are all across various Apple forums on my previous post, I meant both Apple's official forums –where this 'posts deletion' has been happening by Apple staff there (the reason why MR forums are so popular, lol!)– but also all the other Apple news sites with forums, including 9to5mac (who also bothered to make a whole article about it), and all the others.

Anyway, the main problems remain:

1. When migration fails, users are left with no clear idea as to why. Even if it is a music library issue, nothing tells them that. It's so complicated a system, that even Apple tech staff are typically clueless.

2. The music library problem shouldn't have been one in the first place. Apple full well know many users have previously subscribed under their primary account (often years ago), yet they made a migration system that still blocks them (years later).

There's still time to fix these issues, so they should be doing so, but are they? (I bet not)

I agree that the library issue shouldn’t be a deal breaker. I was just arguing against the post that most people couldn’t migrate because of it.

Since Apple supposedly deletes your music library within a year after you stop subscribing to either iTunes Match or Apple Music I don’t even know why it’s an issue, but then Apple isn’t the best at implementing things.

Steve Jobs famous quote “you’re using it wrong” still applies with Apple.

Case in point I want to remove a trusted phone number from my secondary account on the Apple account web site, but it won’t let me as it says stolen device protection is enabled. It says I need to do that on one of my trusted device. I do have stolen device protection on, but there’s no way to edit trusted devices on the device itself for secondary accounts. As such there’s no way to remove trusted phone numbers from a secondary account short of using a spare Apple device to log in to iCloud with the secondary Apple account and wait a week.

 

[Morac]

This is now available outside the U.S.. The only country that’s listed as not available now is India.

 

[MAXAAPL]

Like others I have spent many hours working with Apple Support and still cannot get past the following error message:

“Unable to Migrate Purchases. One or both accounts is not eligible for purchase migration.”

My wife and I created a Family Share through a subscription to Apple One Premier. We each have two accounts (Primary and Secondary). Four accounts or family members total. This was all done as a workaround for the Secondary accounts.

Okay here is what Apple Support had me try in chronological order:

• Remove Secondary Accounts from Family. Solution failed.
• Stop Family Purchase Sharing. Solution failed
• Stop Sharing iCloud Storage. Solution failed
• Dissolve Family completely and cancel Apple One Premier, wait 48 hours before retrying account migration.

The Apple Support staff have been great and I really do feel for them. You can just tell they are frustrated with how this is going. To a large degree many of the solutions suggested have been cooked up among themselves. One lady told me she was getting her information from an online employee chat forum where possible solutions are shared.

At first, I was told having Apple Music at any time on the Secondary would make the migration non eligible. Then I was told it was actually having had iTunes Match would make the migration non eligible. Next, it was the active Apple One Premier on my Primary Account, which was causing the problem because this includes Apple Music. Now, I wait 48 hours and give it a try again, what a mess.

By the way, a post like this one will get removed from the Apple Discussion forums due to not being helpful. Very surprising.

Wait having iTunes Match is a disqualification?

 

[tothemoonsands]

Wait having iTunes Match is a disqualification?

You can’t have music library data on BOTH primary and secondary accounts. If you ever accidentally subscribed to Apple Music or iTunes Match on your primary when you meant to use your secondary with the rest of your purchases (hence wanting to migrate all to primary), then you are out of luck.

It’s unfortunate since Apple created this mess in the first place, and it wasn’t always so clear on delineating Primary and Secondary accounts. I’m pretty sure at one point the flow for signing in to a new device auto logged in people to use their primary for purchases…before they made the separate steps for iCloud login and media purchases login.

 

[One2Manycats]

Wait having iTunes Match is a disqualification?

Yes, from what Apple Support (level 2) has told me either a current or past subscription to Apple Music or iTunes Match on your Primary account will make you non-eligible. The support person which I spoke with said his online notes were very clear on this point. As was the internal error message he was seeing for my migration attempts.

My take on this whole thing:

Remember, any music data on the Secondary account is going to be migrated into the Primary. I think this limitation was meant to prevent users from damaging their Primary account music collections. Some may remember the headlines from 2016:

This Video Proves That Apple Actually Is Deleting Music Files Off Some People’s Hard Drives

Earlier this week, I wrote about the nightmare that is iTunes and Apple Music. My cri de coeur was prompted by a widely circulated blog post by a guy...

slate.com

Warning: Apple Music May Delete Your iTunes Library - Low End Mac

It was almost two years ago that Apple announced it was acquiring Beats by Dr Dre, and by the end of August 2014, the acquisition was finalized. The most common rumors were that Apple was going to use a digital headphone jack instead of the traditional round analog headphone jack in all future...

lowendmac.com

Apple says a bug in iTunes might be deleting users' libraries

Last week, a blog post by a designer named James Pinkstone made the rounds; in it, the writer claimed that Apple Music and iTunes teamed up to delete his 122GB of local music files and basically cause havoc with his library. This isn't the first time we've heard of oddness around how Apple Music...

www.yahoo.com

It was a different issue, but as of 2023 there were over 90 million active Apple Music subscribers, so Apple is probably not going to take any chances with this monster. By the way, that is one boat load of non-eligible accounts.

One other thing:

This is the statement in the Apple Support document for migration of account purchases that addresses all of this:

“You can’t migrate purchases if both the primary Apple Account and the secondary Apple Account have music library data associated with each of them.”

This is vague, there is no way that is an accident. What if you take out the words “music library data” and replace them with “Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription”. Most people will have their active subscriptions on a Primary account. Imagine if just 2% of those 90 million users tried cancelling their subscription for 90 days to see if they could get their Primary account clear of all music data thus making a migration possible.

Anyways, lots of questions and assumptions with very few answers.

 

[jimthing]

Yes, from what Apple Support (level 2) has told me either a current or past subscription to Apple Music or iTunes Match on your Primary account will make you non-eligible. The support person which I spoke with said his online notes were very clear on this point. As was the internal error message he was seeing for my migration attempts.

My take on this whole thing:

Remember, any music data on the Secondary account is going to be migrated into the Primary. I think this limitation was meant to prevent users from damaging their Primary account music collections. Some may remember the headlines from 2016:

This Video Proves That Apple Actually Is Deleting Music Files Off Some People’s Hard Drives

Earlier this week, I wrote about the nightmare that is iTunes and Apple Music. My cri de coeur was prompted by a widely circulated blog post by a guy...

slate.com

Warning: Apple Music May Delete Your iTunes Library - Low End Mac

It was almost two years ago that Apple announced it was acquiring Beats by Dr Dre, and by the end of August 2014, the acquisition was finalized. The most common rumors were that Apple was going to use a digital headphone jack instead of the traditional round analog headphone jack in all future...

lowendmac.com

Apple says a bug in iTunes might be deleting users' libraries

Last week, a blog post by a designer named James Pinkstone made the rounds; in it, the writer claimed that Apple Music and iTunes teamed up to delete his 122GB of local music files and basically cause havoc with his library. This isn't the first time we've heard of oddness around how Apple Music...

www.yahoo.com

It was a different issue, but as of 2023 there were over 90 million active Apple Music subscribers, so Apple is probably not going to take any chances with this monster. By the way, that is one boat load of non-eligible accounts.

One other thing:

This is the statement in the Apple Support document for migration of account purchases that addresses all of this:

“You can’t migrate purchases if both the primary Apple Account and the secondary Apple Account have music library data associated with each of them.”

This is vague, there is no way that is an accident. What if you take out the words “music library data” and replace them with “Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription”. Most people will have their active subscriptions on a Primary account. Imagine if just 2% of those 90 million users tried cancelling their subscription for 90 days to see if they could get their Primary account clear of all music data thus making a migration possible.

Anyways, lots of questions and assumptions with very few answers.

The trouble with this premise is that it doesn't make sense, for the users who signed up YEARS ago for Apple Music (or iTunes Match) on their primary account (often only on a trial) and stopped, so haven't used their primary account for music for YEARS since.

Surely Apple have deleted all their subscribed music selections, so there's nothing there in the background to be screwed-up during this migration from the secondary account. If Apple haven't deleted these selections, the question then is, why haven't they? And why haven't they given the most basic of options for users to do so (whether for this migration feature or not)?

So many silly problems Apple created yet have still failed to properly address.

 

[One2Manycats]

The trouble with this premise is that it doesn't make sense, for the users who signed up YEARS ago for Apple Music (or iTunes Match) on their primary account (often only on a trial) and stopped, so haven't used their primary account for music for YEARS since.

Surely Apple have deleted all their subscribed music selections, so there's nothing there in the background to be screwed-up during this migration from the secondary account. If Apple haven't deleted these selections, the question then is, why haven't they? And why haven't they given the most basic of options for users to do so (whether for this migration feature or not)?

So many silly problems Apple created yet have still failed to properly address.

I absolutely agree with your reasoning. My submission was just one in several possible that illustrates Apples lack of effort in making account migration more possible. We can’t under estimate Apple’s willingness to throw the baby out with the bath water.

The whole migration process is an all or none deal. This just seems to emphasize how Apple is ensuring they are not impacted in a negative way. When in doubt, just say no. It’s kind of like dealing with your local Bank.

By the way, I was one of those 90 plus million users who was willing to cancel their Apple One subscription to try and get migration to work. This solution was suggested to me by Apple Support. In my case Support said waiting 48 hours and everything should work. It was a big failure.

One interesting thing about this “music library data”. During my trouble shooting attempts I dug out an old iMac and reformatted it. Used the Apple Music app on the iMac to sign into an old Apple Account that had not been used in over 10 years. Both the iMac and the account had no association to any devices. As expected, all the old purchased music was there. The thing that surprised me was songs marked as favorite over 10 years ago still retained this setting. I know, this should not make any difference. However, this data thing does seem to be rather sticky.

 

[QCassidy352]

The trouble with this premise is that it doesn't make sense, for the users who signed up YEARS ago for Apple Music (or iTunes Match) on their primary account (often only on a trial) and stopped, so haven't used their primary account for music for YEARS since.

Surely Apple have deleted all their subscribed music selections, so there's nothing there in the background to be screwed-up during this migration from the secondary account. If Apple haven't deleted these selections, the question then is, why haven't they? And why haven't they given the most basic of options for users to do so (whether for this migration feature or not)?

So many silly problems Apple created yet have still failed to properly address.

This is a crazy limitation. The whole point of a primary account is it's the one you want to use going forward, no? So of course my AM sub is on my primary. The secondary is a legacy account I *don't* want to use anymore but that has a bunch of purchases I don't want to lose.

I'll also add that I just talked to Apple Support, and apparently just being in a family share is ALSO is disqualifier?? I removed my secondary from the family, but I don't want to end family sharing entirely just to do this; that's way too much of a pain. But the rep told me that as long as my primary was in a family share, it was ineligible to receive a migration. that's gotta disqualify a huge number of people.

 

[Morac]

I'll also add that I just talked to Apple Support, and apparently just being in a family share is ALSO is disqualifier?? I removed my secondary from the family, but I don't want to end family sharing entirely just to do this; that's way too much of a pain. But the rep told me that as long as my primary was in a family share, it was ineligible to receive a migration. that's gotta disqualify a huge number of people.

I would take anything Apple Support says with a grain of salt, especially tier 1 or 2.

The secondary account can’t be in a family, but the primary can be. My secondary was in the same family as my primary. It would not let me migrate because my secondary was in a family. Once I removed my secondary from my family I could migrate it to my primary. I did not need to remove my primary from my family (it was the family owner).

 

[macsense]

I was able to successfully migrate a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm noticing that my Apple Watch Series 6 keeps asking for the password to my old Apple ID I migrated away from to reinstall some apps. I cannot figure out how to stop this.

 

[One2Manycats]

I was able to successfully migrate a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm noticing that my Apple Watch Series 6 keeps asking for the password to my old Apple ID I migrated away from to reinstall some apps. I cannot figure out how to stop this.

Not sure if you tried this. On the iPhone that your watch is paired with, uninstall the problematic app (I am assuming this is an app the iPhone is sharing with your watch). Then restart both the iPhone and watch. Now reinstall the app.

 

[MAXAAPL]

The trouble with this premise is that it doesn't make sense, for the users who signed up YEARS ago for Apple Music (or iTunes Match) on their primary account (often only on a trial) and stopped, so haven't used their primary account for music for YEARS since.

Surely Apple have deleted all their subscribed music selections, so there's nothing there in the background to be screwed-up during this migration from the secondary account. If Apple haven't deleted these selections, the question then is, why haven't they? And why haven't they given the most basic of options for users to do so (whether for this migration feature or not)?

So many silly problems Apple created yet have still failed to properly address.

Well as I understand it, iTunes Match still exists in some form in Apple Music with iCloud music library. I’d imagine this makes the account ineligible because of music that I uploaded to Apple Music in my iCloud music library may not be able to be transferred because of drm or lack of? I guess that would kind of make sense.

I just wish this migration didn’t come with so many weird caveats and I wish their support or the service itself would tell us WHY exactly we can’t migrate or in my case don’t even have the option to migrate. I know it’s a first world problem but it’s annoying having two accounts for Apple that I must keep track of.. I would rather just have one main account and that’s it. I know it’s my fault but if they simply allowed us to change our iCloud email addresses instead of an alias that would have been much simpler. I’m only in this situation because I created an annoying iCloud email addresses when I signed up for an Apple ID. When I wanted to switch to iCloud for my main email service and leave Gmail I would have been stuck with that annoying iCloud email address I didn’t want.

It wasn’t possible to change the iCloud email address tied to your Apple ID(but apparently it is now).

 

[ManuCH]

I also don`t think it has something to do with GDPR. Also India is not able to do that.
And here in Switzerland we are not part of the EU but GDPR is also valid here and I was able to do the migration today.

Any clues as to why I cannot see the option on my account in Switzerland? Did you have to do anything special?

 

[One2Manycats]

Any clues as to why I cannot see the option on my account in Switzerland? Did you have to do anything special?

If you met all of the conditions in the Apple Support document for account purchase migration then only Apple can truly tell you why this is not working.

Not sure if you saw post #376 from Cinimod1000 in this thread. Give that a check.

Once you do get the account migration option working this whole process is still a very restrictive.

 

[ManuCH]

If you met all of the conditions in the Apple Support document for account purchase migration then only Apple can truly tell you why this is not working.

Not sure if you saw post #376 from Cinimod1000 in this thread. Give that a check.

Once you do get the account migration option working this whole process is still a very restrictive.

Oh, good one, thank you! It seems like Apple added the requirement about not being testing apps on Testflight at a later point and I missed it.

Well, I am testing 6 different apps on Testflight and it's a pain to get rid of them and register again using the new account. So I may just not do it.

Also, what do you mean with the process being "very restrictive" when it works?

 

[One2Manycats]

Oh, good one, thank you! It seems like Apple added the requirement about not being testing apps on Testflight at a later point and I missed it.

Well, I am testing 6 different apps on Testflight and it's a pain to get rid of them and register again using the new account. So I may just not do it.

Also, what do you mean with the process being "very restrictive" when it works?

Reading this thread and the Apple Support document will give you a fairly clear understanding of the restrictions that prevent the migration of account purchases. The main issue is if you have or had a Music subscription on the Primary account.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Yes, yes, yes... did this earlier today. I live in Denmark and I was curious to see if Apple had opened up for us - they had... painless and 20 years overdue

 

[webbuzz]

eta: nvm

 

[MAXAAPL]

Update: migrate purchase option has finally returned. For whatever reason the option to migrate was completely gone despite being signed in with two Apple IDs. Today I randomly check and it’s back.. I attempted to migrate but it failed and I have an idea why. So here’s to hoping I can finally consolidate my Apple ids once I change some things to meet the requirements

 

[Cbarnett202]

After more than 100 tries and hours on the phone with Senior Support, I miraculously was able to complete the migration last night. I was an iTunes Match user and did not change ANY of my family share settings. Dare I say it, it just worked!

If it hadn’t worked for you previously, it might be worth another try!