Michael Grothaus has juggled two Apple IDs for years, making him feel like a second-class Apple citizen. He finally got tired of it and, because Apple still won’t provide a way to merge two Apple IDs, he undertook the arduous task himself.
Your Apple ID is the account that you use to access all Apple services and make all of your devices work together seamlessly.
Michael Grothaus for Fast Company:
I’ve been using Apple products for more than 25 years, and like many long-timers, I’ve been stuck with two Apple IDs because of it—and that’s made me feel like a second-class Apple citizen for a long time.
You see, when you’re stuck with two Apple IDs, your Apple services, emails, app purchases, media purchases, subscriptions, and even Apple Card can be haphazardly divided between the two accounts, making syncing a chore, not to mention remembering which account you bought which iTunes movie from, or which account is associated with which “Sign In With Apple” login.
At the beginning of this year, I was just sick of it . . . and then another issue arose: I tried to log into a website on my Mac with my Sign In With Apple login only to realize that some of my Sign In With Apple logins were tied to my first Apple ID on my iPhone.
It was then that I decided: If Apple wasn’t going to provide a way to merge Apple IDs, I’d do it myself.
A word of warning before I go any further: Manually merging two Apple IDs is hard work. You need to move around a lot of data and remember which data is tied to which account. If you make a mistake, you could wipe out years of important documents, photos, contacts, emails, and more. Also, if you merge your two Apple IDs—and only want to use one going forward—there could be a financial cost, because while you can manually move much of the Apple ID/iCloud data from one account to the next, any media or apps you purchased with one Apple ID cannot be transferred to your other Apple ID account.
Also, if your Apple Card or Apple Savings account is attached to the Apple ID account you want to retire, you cannot move it manually to your new Apple ID. You’ll need to pay off its balance or remove your savings, close the credit card and savings account, and then reapply for them under your other Apple ID.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s hoping that Apple will someday give their oldest and very likely most-loyal customers, a tool to securely merge their Apple IDs so they won’t have to wade through this morass!
So, yes, merging two Apple IDs is a major headache, but it can be done. See how Grothaus did it in the full article here.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
Several, perhaps many, years ago Apple did ask if I wanted to merge two identities – one with iTunes and the other connected to desktop computers – but I declined because I smelled trouble. Once in a great while I’m forced to enter the password for the ‘other’ account but mostly Apple seems to have worked around it because mostly things go smoothly.
seems like there should be an easy way to do this. crazy that there isn’t.
The easiest thing to do is create a Family account and put the new and old IDs on the same plan. I use old non-Apple email for iTunes/App Store purchases. I use new iCloud email for logging on to my iPhone. And on family plan the wife and kids come along for the ride with all of our music, apps, and services shared amongst us.
Also, would even be nice to get rid off a very ancient ID you only once used to test iTunes at it’s begening…
The big problem many of us have is that the email address used to set up iTunes way back in the 90s no longer exists so there’s no way to receive a message there which is something that apple asks for to resolve the account merging issue. At one point about 15 years ago IIRC, there was a program to merge two accounts but it ended. There’s a good reason to bring it back now for a one time use: If you have Apple’s premium monthly service bundle with Music, News, Games, storage, etc., it’s extremely difficult to use with two Apple ID’s. Apple, please fix this for us long time users so we can buy and use the services bundle!
It is insane that Apple hasn’t fixed this for its long-term customers. IIRC Tim replied to a user email about this issue about 10 years back to say hold on for a while.. it’s been over 10 years now. Absurd.