Apple ID and iCloud

Question

My son had to have an iPad for school and we used his school email address when first setting it up. He started high school this year and we just left it all as it was until he got his first iPhone recently.

• I changed his email address for iCloud via my laptop when I set up his phone but now we can't change it on his iPad.
• We are stuck with the old email address.

I tried everything and I no longer have the credit card for verification and even though I remember my 'numbers'

• I do not remember the cvv for the closed card.
• We can't confirm the code that is sent to his school email address as he is no longer in primary school and they deleted his email account.

He doesn't want to lose all his photos, apps and game scores etc that we have backed up via iCloud and if I sign him out of iCloud on his iPad I am worried that will happen - even though I have changed his email via Apple when setting up his iphone.

I worry that everything will be lost on his iPad if I sign him out as we are on iOS 10.0.2.

I have read many questions and answers similar which say that iCloud should not want verification via the old email address - but it does. We also can't remember the old security questions and answers and cannot find where I wrote them all down! I cannot turn off find my iPad due to apple not recognising the old password that we know is correct for the old email associated with his account on his iPad. I am stuck and have tried everything.....

Have we missed any obvious steps to recover this account?

Answer 1

Before you do anything, make a backup of the iPad to a computer if you can.

Also, convincing a school or company to reinstate an email for long enough to recover an account is often doable with patience and some cookies or a pie to the person that’s inconvenienced or needs to approve such a request.

That being said, In my experience @books453 is right and iOS asks what you want to do with photos and other iCloud data when you sign out: so you should be able to remove them from the device or leave them there as long as you aren’t wiping the device.

Since they remain on a device you control, you are able to add to a new iCloud account when you sign in with it. However, I don't know whether this applies to data stored in apps and games, such as game scores.

When you say I changed his email address for iCloud via my laptop when I set up his phone, it sounds like you actually created a new iCloud account for him. If you had in fact changed the email address associated with his iCloud account then I don't think Apple would still be sending confirmation emails to the old email address, as you say many other people have already told you (sorry to repeat it!). To verify whether the new email address is attached to his old iCloud account, log in to http://icloud.com/ with the new email address and see whether the photos and other data from the iPad are are available there - if they are, I would be confident that the replacement of the email address has worked and therefore it should be safe to sign out of the old address and sign in to the new address.

If this was my device and data, I would make an appointment with the Genius Bar at a time when the Apple store won't be busy and ask them to walk through the process with me. Your son's new iPhone should entitle him to at least one session of personal setup assistance and technical support. And don't accept what the first Genius tells you if it's not what you want - get a second opinion, as this is a tricky case that not all staff may be familiar with.

EDIT:

Sorry, I missed that in your question you mentioned you can't even sign out of Find my iPad, which is preventing you from signing out of iCloud even if you want to. I assume that when you tried to go through the process of signing out of iCloud, you eventually hit this prompt:

And based on the confirmation email I received after turning off Find my iPad, you may not even be able to restore or reactivate your iPad unless you can turn off Find my iPad first, which you can't because Apple isn't accepting the password for the old email address:

Presumably this is part of Apple's anti-theft measures that try to make stolen iPhones and iPads useless.

Is there any chance you can visit an Apple Store? If not, I have found their on-line chat people to be very helpful. Does your iPad show up as a registered device under your son's new iCloud email address at https://supportprofile.apple.com/ ? If so, I would hope that Apple's support team would at least try to help you.

Answer 2

If you sign out of iCloud, the data stored on the device will still be there, and if it does want to delete something, it will ask you. You can always try backing up your ipad to iTunes to ensure there is no data loss. If none of this works, I recommend you contact apple support.