We have already mentioned several times why it is better not to share an Apple Account or iCloud account with others. Anyone who does this may, over time, receive messages and telephone calls from the other person, photos may spontaneously disappear, etc.
Anyone who uses a joint Apple Account would do well to disconnect it and each use their own iCloud on their iPhone or iPad. With the help of this guide, we will explain how to disconnect a joint Apple Account without losing personal photos, apps and data.
Disconnect Apple Account from an iPhone or iPad
Using the steps below you can disconnect an Apple Account from an iDevice, we try to delete as little data and personal content as possible. Unfortunately, it can always happen that something goes wrong and photos or contacts, for example, are lost. Therefore, export the most important photos, videos and documents. Follow the steps below on the iPhone or iPad on which you will disconnect the Apple Account and link a new iCloud account.
Turn off iCloud for Photos
- Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad
- Navigate to ‘Apps’ (from iOS 18 and iPadOS 18)
- Tap ‘Photos’
- Check the ‘Download and save originals’ option
All photos and videos are now saved locally on your iPhone or iPad. Wait for this, this might take overnight. Please note, you do need the storage space for this. If necessary, free up space to store the complete contents. As soon as all media has been downloaded, you can disable iCloud.
Download iCloud Drive
- Open Files on your iPhone or iPad
- Navigate to iCloud Drive
- Go to the overview of all your folders
- Place your finger on a folder you want to export
- Tap ‘Move’
- Choose ‘On my [apparaat]’
Safely disable iCloud on iPhone or iPad
- Open ‘Settings’
- Tap your name
- Go to ‘iCloud’
- If necessary, tap ‘Saved in iCloud’
Now pay attention, shift one by one turn off all iCloud items. You can do this by turning off the switch or selecting the ‘Sync this [apparaat]’to deactivate’. When you are asked to save data, choose ‘Save to iPhone/iPad‘. Repeat this for all items and save the data always on your device.
Are you only asked to delete? First export the data if possible. This may be the case for iCloud Drive or Photos. It is therefore important that you first download these parts completely on your iPhone or iPad, or export them manually.
Sign out of iCloud
Once you’ve disabled all items in iCloud and downloaded them to your iPhone or iPad, you can safely disable iCloud and sign out of your Apple Account.
- To do this, go to ‘Settings’
- Tap your name
- Scroll down and tap ‘Sign out’
- If necessary, select ‘Sign out of iCloud and Store’
- Enter your password to confirm logging out
Do you have iOS 17, iPadOS 17 or older installed? Then you can force log out via Settings ▸ your name ▸ iCloud ▸ Log out.
NB! If you are asked to keep or delete items from your iPhone or iPad while logging out, choose always for ‘Save‘. After that, the Apple Account is disconnected from the device.
Sort personal data and media
Now that the Apple Account has been disconnected, you can clean up the applications, which means deleting the data and media that you no longer need. That’s how you should manually Remove photos and videos that you do not want to keep from Photos, the same is also the case for Safari bookmarks, contacts, calendar appointments, notes, etc. Only after this can you set up a new iCloud account.
Use your own iCloud on iPhone/iPad
After disconnecting your Apple Account and sorting personal data and media, you can connect your own iCloud account. If you have not yet created this, you can do so for free via account.apple.com or create when activating iCloud.
Go to Settings and tap ‘Sign in to your iPhone/iPad’. Fill in the Apple Account or create a new one, then follow the steps to activate the account. Once iCloud is activated, you can start syncing by enabling all the apps and services you want to sync with iCloud.
After this, you can use the iPhone or iPad on your personal account and data will no longer be synchronized with the others with which the Apple Account was previously linked. Do you still want to easily share data with family members? Then activate sharing with family (family sharing).