Dara Hogan has a problem that a lot of readers share: two Apple Accounts that are both used for iTunes and iCloud. They wonder about resolving this:
One thing that I don’t fully understand is why iCloud can’t be used as a solution to this problem? Would it be possible for me to set up a new, third Apple Account and to sync both existing accounts to it and then delete them and implement the new, third Apple Account on all my devices?
Dara also notes the reason for staying put, which is a common one for many of you, and is the reason that I continue to use an older Apple Account for iTunes and a newer one for iCloud.
Everything is in sync (which is why I haven’t moved to using just one Apple Account before now). If I add a new contact on my iPhone it pops up on my iMac. Likewise with Calendar entries. Also, the 385 physical CDs that I’ve uploaded to iTunes on my iMac are also there on my iPhone and music I’ve purchased from iTunes on my iPhone are also on my iMac.
So here’s the problem. You can’t migrate your email. You could make sure one Mac (better than iOS for this purpose) was up to date with contacts and calendars, and you’d use Mail or another IMAP-supported mail client to download all email that was stored on the server to local storage.
If you used iCloud Photos or Sync Library or iTunes Match, you’d want to be sure that 100 percent of the synced material is stored locally on the Mac, too. (In iCloud Photos, set the iCloud settings to download full-resolution images.) You’d also need to make sure you’d cleared out iCloud Drive of any files you need.
Then you could disable iCloud and be sure to click every dialog that asks that you want to keep information stored locally. Now, you can create a new Apple Account you plan to use with iCloud synchronization and enable synchronization for all the services.
However, a lot of provisos:
- You might be able to migrate purchases that you’ve made from your secondary Apple Account — like apps, music, and other content — to your primary Apple Account.
- If you want to keep using one of the emails associated with your other Apple Accounts—especially to send email using that address as the return address—you need to keep an entry in your mail programs for it. (You can forward iCloud email, though, and that may be enough of a solution for many people.)
- There may be Apple-associated or third-party connections to the Apple Accounts or associated email addresses, so you may regularly have to log in or enter passwords in any case.
If that all works for you, then a third Apple Account (or consolidating sync to one of the two existing ones) should work out just fine.
