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I asked this earlier and don’t think I got an answer.

What security risks are we opening by changing this from a third party email? If our account gets compromised, would I have a harder time getting back in?
 
I asked this earlier and don’t think I got an answer.

What security risks are we opening by changing this from a third party email? If our account gets compromised, would I have a harder time getting back in?
There's a place on your Apple ID settings page to set a recovery email. It's under security, and it's labeled as "notification email" for some dumb reason.
 
There's a place on your Apple ID settings page to set a recovery email. It's under security, and it's labeled as "notification email" for some dumb reason.

Ahh. Yes. I remember seeing that. It’s currently a Yahoo email (is that secure?!) but I guess I can change it to gmail. My Apple ID is my gmail and I’d like to change it to iCloud.

I’m actually surprised so many people use me emails. I hardly know anyone that uses an Apple email, let alone a me.

I have a friend with a mac email. I get jealous every time I email her. I wish I had bought that years ago.
 
You sound like you keep wanting to think accounts merged, or things somehow moved which is not what happened. Think of this way...

Apple ID 12345678 (some internal ID number)
Primary: xyz@gmail.com
Alias: abc@me.com
Alias: abc@icloud.com

After I changed my e-mail address from xyz@gmail.com to abc@me.com and removed the xyz@gmail.com address:

Apple ID 12345678 (same internal ID number)
Primary: abc@me.com
Alias: abc@icloud.com

Nothing moves, gets lost or anything similar since its still the same ID.

Yes but that gmail e-mail is itself an Apple ID. You've just said you were able to rename it the same thing as an existing e-mail address being used as an Apple ID. That's merging two accounts, since you're now calling them the same thing? How else could Apple tell two different accounts apart if they have the exact same name?
 
The change Apple made is to allow you to drop the third party e-mail address that was previously required and has NOTHING to do with merging two or more Apple accounts. In the prior example, you can see where I included an internal Apple ID number to help illustrate.

You're still saying that your xyz@gmail Apple ID address became a pre-existing abc@me Apple ID address. You already had the abc@me Apple ID address, and changed your xyz@gmail Apple ID address to it. If that's not merging I don't know what is.

I understand you can drop your third party email address, but it's still tied to a unique Apple ID account. As I understood it, you can now change that third party Apple ID address to a new Apple e-mail address (whereas before you could only change it to another third party address), but the account and everything connected to it has to remain separate from your other existing accounts. In your example you go from 3 Apple IDs to 2. That's merging accounts, which is not possible.

What I think you mean is that you went from an abc@gmail.com Apple ID to xyz@me.com Apple ID, since you already had an abc@me.com Apple ID account. That's where I think the confusion began with the OP. You still have three separate Apple IDs and accounts, but now all three are Apple email addresses, rather than two Apple and a gmail.

Apple ID 12345678 (some internal ID number) --> Apple ID 12345678 (same internal ID number)
Primary: xyz@gmail.com --------------------------> New Alias: xyz@me.com
Alias: abc@me.com --------------------------------> Primary: abc@me.com
Alias: abc@icloud.com -----------------------------> Alias: abc@icloud.com
 
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The change Apple made is to allow you to drop the third party e-mail address that was previously required and has NOTHING to do with merging two or more Apple accounts. In the prior example, you can see where I included an internal Apple ID number to help illustrate.

I think one possibilty is that if you used one of those aliases in the past to sign into the app store, then apple converted the alias to a seperate appleid. Several years ago I inadvertantly “bought” El Capitan on my iMac not realizing I was signed in to the app store with my @me adress instead of my @gmail. Just my theory.
 
I use to use the "abc@me.com" alias to sign in to iCloud / iTunes for several years, I only stopped doing so a couple of months ago since it was causing more pain than benefit with some devices / services.

Then you never used abc@me.com to ever purchase anything through iTunes. You basically took an unused email account and converted it to your active Apple ID. In essence you did merge the two Apple IDs. Had you made any purchases with the abc@me.com you would have lost them.

My confusion was that I assumed you were doing the same thing as I am. I have a yahoo Apple ID, a @Mac Apple ID, a @me/iCloud Apple ID. All of which have purchases, and none of them can be merged.
 
Done. Easy. I just had to sign out of iPhone, 2 Apple TVs, Apple Watch. I didn't bother with my PowerPCs as they've been put away for over a year now :(.

The scary part?? When I signed in to appleid.apple.com and it said it's sending me a verification code. All my devices were signed out and nothing came through!!

I saw a link to request one via SMS. But I think I lost 3 days of my life right there.
 
I think I figured it out folks, for those of us having an issue changing our IDs and getting the error with @me.com or @icloud.com.

Here is what you do. On an iOS device, go to setting then accounts and passwords. Next, add and iCloud account. Use your Apple ID. As an example mine was xxx@gmail.com. Next toggle on the Mail setting. It will ask you to create a new iCloud email address ending in @icloud.com. Next, sign out of the account. Now go to the applied webpage and then click manage. It will now let you change your Apple ID from @gmail.com to the newly created iCloud Id. (The same process will likely work on a Mac)

I no longer get the unable to use @me.com or @icloud.com error message. Though I do get a new error message saying I can’t make the change at this time and to try again later. I think I just need to give it a few hours until the newly created iCloud emails propagate through the system. I will edit this post later when it is fully resolved.

I did the same thing you did and I'm still getting the "can't make the change at this time" message after 4 days.

Also, Apple's instructions say to click "Change email address" and then select the new one from the list, but there is no list. It makes me type in an email address. I have another email address in the "Reachable at" section (the one I set up using your method) but it won't let me use it.
 
I changed from my gmail Apple ID to my iCloud email address. iTunes still prompts for the old Apple ID (Gmail). When I click 'Account,' the new email shows. At a loss.
 
I created new iCloud account on my iPhone (with new address that I want to use) and can't add it as "Reachable at..".

It says,
"This email address is not available. Choose a different address".

My current address is iCloud as well. Any ideas? Is it 30 days limit for new accounts? Can I speed up the process?
 
I created new iCloud account on my iPhone (with new address that I want to use) and can't add it as "Reachable at..".

It says,
"This email address is not available. Choose a different address".

My current address is iCloud as well. Any ideas? Is it 30 days limit for new accounts? Can I speed up the process?

I think the "process" may be designed to DISCOURAGE people from using iCloud. :rolleyes:
 
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I use a gmail address as my Apple ID. I recently made an icloud address using my mac. Now I wanted to change my Apple ID to my icloud address today.


I found these official instructions.
https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT202667


I did whatever was mentioned there. I signed out Apple ID on my mac. I don't have any other apple device. And I went to the apple ID site to make the change but it only gives me the following error.


"Your Apple ID cannot be updated at this time. Please try again later."


If that matters, yes my icloud address is added as secondary address for my Apple account and I can login using this address. But I want this as my primary address not the gmail one. I have tried changing multiple times but nothing happens other than that error. Please help!
 
I use a gmail address as my Apple ID. I recently made an icloud address using my mac. Now I wanted to change my Apple ID to my icloud address today.


I found these official instructions.
https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT202667


I did whatever was mentioned there. I signed out Apple ID on my mac. I don't have any other apple device. And I went to the apple ID site to make the change but it only gives me the following error.


"Your Apple ID cannot be updated at this time. Please try again later."


If that matters, yes my icloud address is added as secondary address for my Apple account and I can login using this address. But I want this as my primary address not the gmail one. I have tried changing multiple times but nothing happens other than that error. Please help!

For some of us, I don't think we'll ever see it resolved. Better get used to that gmail account. I've given up.
 
For some of us, I don't think we'll ever see it resolved. Better get used to that gmail account. I've given up.

Hi cfurlin, Are you also getting the exact same error? How many others are getting the same error? I have not found any help online yet for this error. Maybe not many are getting this kind of error. I don't even know the technical reason why this may be happening to me. This is quite frustrating for me. Also it looks like there are people who were able to successfully change their Apple ID to their icloud address.

RESPONSE FROM APPLE SUPPORT: I called Apple Support today and they gave some vague answer that I am able to login using your icloud address so that is the maximum I can do. I explained them I wanted this icloud address as my primary email ID so that all Apple email will land on this ID but they don't seem to understand. They looked confused and told my icloud address is also my Apple ID because it is listed under 'reachable at' so it cannot be used as primary ID. They told I can only change it to any other third party address but not icloud. I showed them the apple support article which discussed the new option to change third party address to icloud address. Perhaps the support guys themselves had no idea about this new update from apple.

I am new to Apple, bought my first Mac this month. I thought Apple support guys must be better (and smarter) than other support teams (like Windows) but I guess they are also the same just like other companies. Some clueless people struggling to do their job who have no update about ongoing issues.
 
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