You need an Apple Account when registering your iPhone, iPad, Mac, creating an iCloud account or registering an App Store account. This is often an Apple email address, such as @me.com or @icloud.com. In addition, other email addresses can also serve for an Apple Account, such as a Gmail or personal email account.
If you have received a different email address over the years, but your Apple Account is still with the old one, then there is actually nothing to worry about. The address is only used as a ‘username’. So it is not necessary to adjust this, but you may find it more useful to remember. Fortunately, you can easily change the primary email address of your Apple Account via Apple’s special web page.
Adjust linked Apple Account email address
- Open the following page in your web browser: account.apple.com
- Log in with your Apple Account
- Navigate to ‘Login and security’
- Then click or tap “Email & Phone Numbers”
- Click or tap the minus button next to your primary email address
- You can then enter an email address via ‘New Apple Account’
You can then change and confirm the email address by clicking/tapping ‘Change primary email address’. After making the changes, you will receive a message at the email address you just entered requiring you to activate the new account. From then on you can log in with your new email address, the password has remained unchanged.
Change primary email address via iPhone or iPad
Starting with iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1, you can also change the primary email address of your Apple Account directly from an iPhone or iPad.
- Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad
- Navigate to your Apple Account
- Tap ‘Sign in & security’
- Select ‘Add email or telephone number’
- Select ‘Existing email address’
- Follow the steps on the screen
After you have added the email address, return to the ‘Login & security’ overview and tap the email address you just added. Enable the ‘Primary email address’ option. This email address will then be linked and you can use it to log in to your Apple Account from now on. Your old email address will be retained as an alias.
It is not recommended to choose the ‘Remove from account’ option for an iCloud or Apple account. This will result in the permanent deletion of the email address and can therefore no longer be used.
Also suitable for iCloud users
The above method used to only apply to non-iCloud users. If your Apple Account consisted of an @iCloud, @me or @Mac email address, it was previously not possible to adjust your Apple Account. Fortunately, this is a thing of the past and these users can also change the address to an ‘Apple address’.
Apple Account cannot be changed
Are you experiencing problems? Then it is best to log out of all your devices, as recommended by Apple. This means logging out of iCloud and then trying to change the address on the Apple Account website. You can then log in to your devices with your new Apple Account. If the problems persist, you can contact Apple Support.
Please note, do you already have an iCloud account and also happen to have an Apple Account with a different email address, for example Gmail? Then it is not possible to change the Gmail email address to the iCloud email address. After all, your iCloud address is already an Apple Account.