How to Change your Apple ID?

[ChrissyRyan]

How about just starting to use a new Apple ID if all else fails?

You can download lots of stuff from your current ID, maybe not all, and your emails should be on your email account server. Stuff you cannot get to on your new ID perhaps you can access occasionally via infrequent use of your current ID.

[Tills]

How about just starting to use a new Apple ID if all else fails?

You can download lots of stuff from your current ID, maybe not all, and your emails should be on your email account server. Stuff you cannot get to on your new ID perhaps you can access occasionally via infrequent use of your current ID.

Yeah it has gone through my mind actually. Feels drastic but could also be liberating. I think the next time I buy an Apple device that's what I might do so the transition over is gradual and easier.

xx

[Tills]

I've updated something which relates to all this over here:

https://www.susans.org/index.php?topic=250751

xx

[Tills]

Well I've made a LOT of progress with this although I'm not all the way done yet.

I won't repeat all the links from Apple Support above but here's the situation:

There have been 3 stages.

1. Rename computer.

Easy to do.

2. Rename User Group. This is the name that is seen on the Network and therefore by other devices that you use. It's ALSO the name which appears on your lock screen even if your device name has been changed (stage 1 above).

Was this easy to do? Fairly but only if you follow exactly what Apple tell you above. That means first and foremost Backing everything up, then creating a new Administrator Account if you don't have one. Then from there you must follow by the letter the guidance for renaming users and folders, exactly as it tells you.
Do this and it does work! I promise

So at this point I have 1. a computer in my new name. 2. a User group name in my new name which means lock screen too.

As for no. 3. Reassigning your sign in email address for Apple ID Arrrrrgggggh!

I'm nearly but not fully there with this and it's mega complicated. Or has been for me. This is because I have a number of email addresses associated with my account and I have been constantly getting the infamous error message:

Your email address cannot be removed. Use iMessage and FaceTime Settings

Which then doesn't work 😜

The problem may be the use of aliases but I may yet be able to do something about removing the email addresses from Settings on my phone rather than MacBook.

Anyway, I have succeeded in changing my Apple Primary email address to the one associated with my new name. But underneath my name it's still showing my old dead name email. It seems that the trick is to remove those old email addresses and then put them back if you want to.

Also Apple no longer call it User ID. It's now called Apple Account.

[Tills]

Update: I've done it!!!

I had to take the plunge and delete my old email address entirely using my phone not my MacBook. As soon as I did that, it automatically updated my Apple Account (what was called Apple ID) to my new email address across all my devices.

So now everything aligns in my new name:

Computer name
Phone name
User Group name
Lock Screen name
Email address associated with Apple Account (Apple ID)
Apple Account aka Apple ID

It has taken a few hours to get there but, for me, totally worth it. I don't see why Apple or any other organisation should misgender me, which is how it began to feel to me.

xx

[ChrissyRyan]

Did you lose your old emails?

[Tills]

Did you lose your old emails?

No, amazingly I didn't.

🙂

[ChrissyRyan]

Update: I've done it!!!

I had to take the plunge and delete my old email address entirely using my phone not my MacBook. As soon as I did that, it automatically updated my Apple Account (what was called Apple ID) to my new email address across all my devices.

So now everything aligns in my new name:

Computer name
Phone name
User Group name
Lock Screen name
Email address associated with Apple Account (Apple ID)
Apple Account aka Apple ID

It has taken a few hours to get there but, for me, totally worth it. I don't see why Apple or any other organisation should misgender me, which is how it began to feel to me.

xx

If this was done as step 1 after backing up, with the result you wished, that would have been a simple account transition.

[Tills]

If this was done as step 1 after backing up, with the result you wished, that would have been a simple account transition.

Hi, not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean Apple should make the whole thing simple? They should but they don't. It's really complicated as countless other tech-minded people testify on forums all over the internet. Typical Apple, frankly.

Anyway, I hope that this thread may be a useful resource for any others who want to take a deep breath and take the plunge. It is possible folks.

xx

p.s. oh I should have mentioned too: print out all the Apple support pages first. Otherwise, when you log in as an Administrator you may not be able to see what you're supposed to do.

[Lori Dee ✅]

Do you mean Apple should make the whole thing simple? They should but they don't. It's really complicated as countless other tech-minded people testify on forums all over the internet.

Thank you, Tills.

I wonder if the difficulty is intentional for security reasons. I imagine someone stealing a MacBook, then trying to change everything to their ID. If they were caught, there would be traces of the real owner's credentials still lingering.

Or maybe they just enjoy being difficult.

[Tills]

Thank you, Tills.

I wonder if the difficulty is intentional for security reasons. I imagine someone stealing a MacBook, then trying to change everything to their ID. If they were caught, there would be traces of the real owner's credentials still lingering.

Or maybe they just enjoy being difficult.

Yes I think you're correct Lori Dee. I should perhaps have also mentioned that at various points during the changes I had to verify it was me making them by two-factor authentications. And then emails confirming it was me that made them.

So I guess you're right: it's a security thing. And to be fair Apple do seem very good on security. I've never had a virus on any Apple device in 15 years of usage.

[Tills]

If this was done as step 1 after backing up, with the result you wished, that would have been a simple account transition.

I think I see what you meant but the danger with 'just' changing your Apple Account email, what used to be called Apple ID, is that you may lose data on your User Group name. It's safer to take the steps that I have outlined by changing your User Group name. Otherwise, according to Apple, you may end up locked out of your previous data.

If anyone coming to this thread wishes to cleanse their Apple system of their dead name it's best to follow all of the steps as I have outlined.

I would also reiterate the point I've made about changing the email associated with your account. It's not necessarily straightforward, as countless techies on online forums can testify. The message Your email address cannot be removed. Use iMessage and FaceTime Settings is a widespread headscratch glitch. It's a particular problem if you have alias email addresses but there are a number of other reasons it can occur. That's why I would advise anyone on this forum wanting to go down this route to consider tackling the Apple Account name last in the process and do it thoroughly step by step in the sequence I have previously outlined.

 

[Tills]

I'm not a techie, and certainly not by today's standards by any stretch, but I'm probably not a Luddite either.

Way, way, back when personal computers barely existed I took a portable laptop into the African rainforest. It weighed a ton and was the size of an elephant. Re-charging it when we didn't have electricity was 'interesting'. Sometime later I wound up living in a central African city at a time when mobile technology was only just emerging. The internet still hadn't really become a 'thing' at that point either, but I helped set up a computer and automated script so that it would wake up in the dead of night and dialled into a satellite passing overhead, whereupon it would download and upload email packages from a base in the UK. I also helped run a number of Motorola handsets off a transmitter which we installed on a hilltop: our very own private mobile phone service which then became the envy of the city. I was offered vast amounts to sell it. (I didn't.)

I wrote an article about this which was published in a UK magazine. I gave it the title:

Lasers in the Jungle

Some of you may recognise the phrase from Paul Simons' brilliant Graceland album and, specifically, the song 'The Boy in the Bubble.'

I had a chance there and then to make a fortune rolling out mobile tech in central and southern Africa. I knew I could have made millions out of it. But I consciously chose a different path, not one about making money and instead, as it turned out, focused on helping others in a not-for-profit way.

In latter days I've been recalcitrant about technology's invasion of our lives and I'm pretty anti-flow. For the past 20 years I have been a regular Pirate Bay techie. I don't think I've paid for anything on the internet for a decade. Many of you will be understandably very irate with me for that, and will consider it theft, but I rip files and share files because I am anti-capitalist.

I use VPNs and wipe history NOT because I view bad content but because I know tech firms use spyware, including so-called 'cookies', to data mine you and ultimately to control you.

Oh and Edward Snowdon was absolutely right: your microphone is always on. Want an example?

One day I was chatting in the garden with someone. Our phones were out on the table. I happened to mention a very obscure museum which I had once been to in Hamburg called Miniatur Wunderland. In the years since I visited there I had never received any contact from them of any sort.

An hour later I received an advert by email for Miniatur Wunderland.

That, my friends, is not a coincidence ...

xx

[Tills]

I really do apologise if my ripping thing causes anger. I understand. It's my choice.

xx

[Stottie Girl]

I really do apologise if my ripping thing causes anger. I understand. It's my choice.

xx

Pish, I've used pirate bay and many other p2p sites Tills. Sometimes it is necessary as software price increases became astronomical. I always liked to have a copy of Autocad on my pc for example as I found it so useful for so many things but the price now is eyewatering at £1,890 per year!

I don't use them anymore since I switched to my macbook but that is mainly because I was getting sick of downloading fake links or software that was only trial versions etc. I have no moral objections to sticking it up the big tech empires!

[Tills]

😀

[Lori Dee ✅]

Oh and Edward Snowdon was absolutely right: your microphone is always on. Want an example?

One day I was chatting in the garden with someone. Our phones were out on the table. I happened to mention a very obscure museum which I had once been to in Hamburg called Miniatur Wunderland. In the years since I visited there I had never received any contact from them of any sort.

An hour later I received an advert by email for Miniatur Wunderland.

That, my friends, is not a coincidence ...

My computer does not have a microphone or camera for that very reason. I also refuse to have any Google account. Back when I had a Gmail account, my dad and I were discussing my brother's stock photo business. Within an hour, I started seeing ads for photography equipment and how to make money selling stock photos.

I spent several months purging my internet presence, deleting social media accounts, changing email addresses and passwords, etc. I had a website (WordPress personal blog), and the analytics showed it was being visited every day by someone at Home Depot. I had a Home Depot account, but I found it suspicious that they knew anything about my blog. It turns out the IP address did not belong to Home Depot, but the Department of Defense. Yeah, I shut that down too.

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me!

🤣

[ChrissyRyan]

My computer does not have a microphone or camera for that very reason. I also refuse to have any Google account. Back when I had a Gmail account, my dad and I were discussing my brother's stock photo business. Within an hour, I started seeing ads for photography equipment and how to make money selling stock photos.

I spent several months purging my internet presence, deleting social media accounts, changing email addresses and passwords, etc. I had a website (WordPress personal blog), and the analytics showed it was being visited every day by someone at Home Depot. I had a Home Depot account, but I found it suspicious that they knew anything about my blog. It turns out the IP address did not belong to Home Depot, but the Department of Defense. Yeah, I shut that down too.

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me!

🤣

Wow that is scary.  I hear that people can activate your microphones and camera remotely.
Apple has screen indicators that light up when either is in use, although one wonders if those can be shut down too.

There are nosey people around. 

I have unusual happening while online at times, such as mysterious screen scrolling.


Chrissy

[Tills]

Yeah my son assures me that the microphone and camera are on even if you think they're not or the indicators aren't lit. He puts black tape over his camera.

It's so sinister.

[Lori Dee ✅]

I have the movie, Snowden, so I am a little extra careful.