It has been a long time requesting this possibility from users and Apple has finally listened and allows you to change your Apple ID from a third-party account (gmail, hotmail, yahoo or any other) to your own Apple account (icloud.com). The change has started to be seen today, and it seems that it has been in response to a request by a user.
Why right now? We do not know why Apple has finally listened to the email of a user asking to be allowed to change their Apple account, with a third-party email to Apple's own email, such as the icloud.com that we all have. The important thing is that it can already be done and we explain how and what the consequences are.
A decision too important
When we first created our Apple account, we were not aware of how important the decision we make is when deciding the email that we will associate with it. We usually take the first account we have on hand, maybe not even the main one, and this decision that we take lightly later has important consequences. Almost all of us decided to use a gmail or hotmail account, the most widespread emails, among other things because at that moment we do not have an icloud account, we may not even know what it is.
Until now we dragged this decision forever, since although we could change the email account associated with our Apple ID, this new email account could not be one of Apple, neither iCloud.com nor me.com. A strange decision on the part of Apple and that few understood, but that we accepted with resignation. Once we have our Apple ecosystem perfectly created and we want to use our iCloud account to have everything centralized within Apple, Apple itself would not allow us to do so.
Until now, because we can do it now. We just have to enter our Apple account from any browser and click on the edit button on the right. There we will be given the option to change our Apple ID.
Now we can choose which email account we want to associate with our Apple account, and yes, we can finally use an iCloud.com. But be very careful when making this decision, because according to Apple itself informs us, this change will be irreversible, and once we have our account associated with an Apple email, we will no longer be able to use a third-party account. This shouldn't be of much consequence to most, but think about it.
Once the whole process is finished, you will have your Apple ID with the iCloud account. The question is what happens to all my devices? They are automatically switched to the new iCloud account you have added. Only the Mac has asked me for my account password, which is automatic on my iPhone and iPad, so there should be no problem making the change.
This option is not enabled in Spain yet, at least in my 2 accounts it does not allow it.
Well boy, it won't let me change it, it says it can't be an iCloud account. nor me 🙁
I don't know if you have. It keeps telling me that it can't be done.
Hello and purchases associated with the account are lost?
Well, I can't either, it tells me that I can't use an account that ends even in .mac .me .icloud
I just changed it right now and without any problem
The account you want to change to is already associated with your apple id ??? that is, it appears where it says «Localizable» ??? He doesn't let me change either, he tells me that you can't use @ icloud.com
Probably being a new function they will gradually extend it to all accounts.
it's easy, I could change my id
For me the big problem is that the Apple ID with which I have worked for years is from a gmail account, and from what I know if I use the iCloud I lose the purchases made, which in my case are many, that is, that the real problem is that it does not allow us to merge two accounts.
Nothing is lost because you are not merging anything. Your account remains the same as always. You are only changing the email it is associated with.