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Apple Now Lets You Move Digital Purchases From One Apple Account to Another
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THIS is the biggest Apple News of the year! Finally. Even so I am in Europe and have to wait a bit longer I am happy that they finally made this possible
I decided to bite the bullet and transfer over. Despite saying the secondary could not be in a "different" family, I still had to have my secondary leave my primary's family. For the most part everything went fairly smoothly, but there were a few hiccups:
- I had to disconnect Movies Anyway and reconnect it to my primary Apple account. That worked fine, though movies didn't show up on any devices I had already logged into (just my iPad) until I logged back out and in again. I appears all MA movies migrated over. I have 404 movies in my MA account and 470 movies showed up in my Library, so that seems correct. I didn't check all of them, but there are ones I bought outside of iTunes showing up.
- My Apple TV got into a weird state where it was both signed into media and not (I saw my Up Next, but wasn't logged in). I had signed out and it wanted me to sign back in using my iPhone, but doing so never completed. I tried rebooting my Apple TV, but that didn't help. I finally had to log in to media manually on my Apple TV. After that I logged out and was able to log back in automatically using my iPhone.
- I had to open the Home app on my iPhone and iPad and tap the pop up saying to switch my home to my new music account a few times. That may be related to issue #2 above.
- When I signed into Music on my Mac, I couldn't find any way to enable library syncing. Eventually it asked me if I wanted to and I said yes. I have a large number of songs that I previously matched or uploaded via iTunes Match back in the day. These initially showed up as "waiting" and then a large percentage went to "error", "ineligible" or "duplicate". I selected them all and chose "add to library" and most, but not all changed to the correct status (uploaded, matched, etc). Some are still showing as "illegible" that had previously been matched or uploaded. Apple does say it can take several hours for your Apple Music library to update, so I'll try again later. As far as I can tell all my playlists are there, including ones I added this week. I had to authorize my Mac again.
- I got signed out of Game Center several times (see below). I'm not sure why exactly. When I checked I was logged out on my Mac, iPad and iPhone. I signed in using my secondary Apple account which worked, but when I check a little later I was logged out again. I signed in again. I'm not sure how long it actually stays logged in. It does show the correct Game Center profile in the App Store when logged in, despite the accounts being different, but I fear that it won't stay logged in.
- When I went to update an installed app it made me enter my secondary account password on my iPhone and iPad (not my Mac). After doing that I needed to enter my primary account password to view my media account. I believe this is because it needs to log in as the account an app was downloaded under which was the secondary one. I’m hoping it remembers the password as and I don’t want to have to delete and reinstall all my apps to get them to update without requiring me to enter a password every time.
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Yeah the company that would really like for you to neither lose your passwords nor your accounts is more obnoxious than the one FORCING software updates on your system whenever it sees fit.
I never had to wait for a macOS install when starting up my machine in the morning or in a clutch situation. 2FA is only obnoxious if you don’t understand why it’s there.
As I posted above, mine isn’t working, and I think the only culprit is possibly related to being under that 15 day time frame since last purchase. The question is…I assume this means both media and subscription purchase? I’m having to cancel several because they all renew at different times and it’s hard to get a clear 15 day window… Not to mention I’ll be on a movie rental/purchase embargo and I’ve already cut off my family from purchase sharing.
This is a mess, I’m just hoping it’s worth it… certainly not right now for me.
This is a mess, I’m just hoping it’s worth it… certainly not right now for me.
Found another issue after I migrated.
When I went to update an installed app it made me enter my secondary account password on my iPhone and iPad (not my Mac). After doing that I needed to enter my primary account password to view my media account. I believe this is because it needs to log in as the account an app was downloaded under which was the secondary one. I’m hoping it remembers the password as and I don’t want to have to delete and reinstall all my apps to get them to update without requiring me to enter a password every time.
When I went to update an installed app it made me enter my secondary account password on my iPhone and iPad (not my Mac). After doing that I needed to enter my primary account password to view my media account. I believe this is because it needs to log in as the account an app was downloaded under which was the secondary one. I’m hoping it remembers the password as and I don’t want to have to delete and reinstall all my apps to get them to update without requiring me to enter a password every time.
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Doesn’t it work like that already?
I thought once my sister is 18 she can administrate her own account and use apps she „purchased“ even if family sharing is off. Or are you talking about something else?
They are a big indie company now, I hear they had quite a success with that “AirPods” product. So, I’m sure they have several million dollars! And at least dozen employees! At least!
I have exactly the same problem. All my apps are associated with my old account. I can`t redownload any apps. I asks me to login with my old account and then fails. I hope it just needs to
Finally. But why is this restricted to the US? Don’t tell me that GDPR prevents it in the EU.
So, please, Apple, let us Europeans do this, too.
So, please, Apple, let us Europeans do this, too.
I’m in a family where we have separate accounts for iCloud and Media Purchases.
1) would this migration make things easier?
2) the media purchases account is also the one I use for my Apple Music profile. If that one becomes dormant, will I need to start over with my Apple Music library?
Quite confusing.
1) would this migration make things easier?
2) the media purchases account is also the one I use for my Apple Music profile. If that one becomes dormant, will I need to start over with my Apple Music library?
Quite confusing.
I was going to say the exact same thing. Insanity. How can something like this take so long? And after all this time, why bother? Morons.
I got it to work. I only had the problem with Whatsapp to redownload because I had a beta installed. Reinstalling wordked. So everything is ok now.
Just FYI:
- Testflight Invites will be lost
- Game Center will be lost (but you can still log in with the old Account if you want)
Just FYI:
- Testflight Invites will be lost
- Game Center will be lost (but you can still log in with the old Account if you want)
Wow. Talking about finally.. 
But I would like them to allow to move apps or content form the same account to the same account. I changed regions form USA to EU and lost hundreds of apps that I have perched. I mean they were there, but I could not update them, the app store would not recognize them, etc, etc. Basically I had to create another account and start over..
But I would like them to allow to move apps or content form the same account to the same account.
I changed regions form USA to EU and lost hundreds of apps that I have perched. I mean they were there, but I could not update them, the app store would not recognize them, etc, etc. Basically I had to create another account and start over..I'm sure that's the case.. Since some bright person at apple thinks geo-blocking the apps to be country-specific actually blocks anyone.. I have 3 or 4 iTunes accounts as a result of this stupid rule. When something is on the app store, it should be global. If certain countries want to exempt themselves from certain apps, I guess fine...
