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my daughter has an iPhone 6s, running on iOS 9.3.5, for over 6 months. She had another iPhone, 4s, that she no longer uses, and that we initially set up all her Apple info with. She hadn't setup her email on her new phone, as she didn't use the associated email address regularly anymore. (It was an old email she set up when younger that she didn't care for the name). It's with this email address her iTunes and App Store was tied to. She set up a new email a few months back, with a less cutesy name (now that she's older) and this was the one she wanted to use for her 6s. She wanted to use the original email as her secondary and switch everything to her current email address.

She is not on iCloud.

I went to the apple site, and saw the options to switch your Apple ID to a different email, and the other option after setting up that, to then switch her Apple ID login to her newer email. All went well, as we received the verified codes sent to her current email (accessed by laptop), to set this all up. It seemed all very seamless. It verified her new email address was the ID and to be used in place of the older email address.

However, moments later, when going to App Store, the older email address was still there. We shut those windows, and restarted phone, but older email address remained. We signed out of the older email address, and signed in with new one. We got an error message. We then said let's see if older one worked, it does not either (of course, we knew this, we got verification it was switched to new email).

So now she can't set up email. And she's afraid she will lose all her games on her phone, all the progress she's made on her different apps, she's afraid she will lose her notes that were associated with the older email address, the one she wanted to switch to secondary, but still use on occasion. She is afraid all her progress with Game Centre will be lost. The games are still usable, but it asks her to sign in, and she skips that step now, because she can't sign in.

We followed the instructions. I keep going over what we did, and we did the correct steps.

What went wrong? Will she lose all her information? Can any one shed some light on this for us?

Thank you in advance!

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My suggestion is to sign out of iTunes & App Stores and try to log in using the new email. If you go to the App Store after that and her purchases are still there then you are good to go.

Settings > AppleId > Sign out

If when you attempt to login with the new email it asks you to fill out additional information then her new email is most likely a new apple id and you will not be able to use that email in the app store or iTunes and have access to what she previously purchased.

If it signs in and you have access to all her previous purchases then you are good to go. If not then sign out again and log back in with the old apple id.

Keep in mind there are many places that you will need to change you apple id if you want to completely switch. All are accessible in settings. Examples are:

  • iCloud
  • iTunes & App Store
  • Mail

I have been through several different hells regarding my apple id. The unfortunate best advice is not to try to change your apple id to an icloud.com or me.com address. I have two that I manage now. I don't like it and apple is unable to fix it which I think is ridiculous.

My best advice for if she wants to change her apple id to something less cute is to start from scratch.

  1. Create a non-apple related email address using your preferred service that is less cute (I used gmail)
  2. Login to https://appleid.apple.com with the old cute email
  3. In the Account section, there is an edit link
  4. This will allow you to change the apple id email to the new email address
  5. Perform the log out steps from above and sign back in to each of them with the new email address.
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  • Hi, thanks for your help! Follow up: able to sign into App Store/iTunes with the changed ID. She is still able to play games. But, the Game Center still has old ID under settings. It prompts her to sign in with old ID when she opens some games, which she cancels out. The games associated GC greeting do not greet her when opening games. Original ID no longer works. The latest ID shows all her old purchases, since first iPhone. Similar questions on forums indicates she will lose all progress. But when I called Apple support said she should not. Said GC would not reflect change for another month.
    – catmama3
    Jan 11, 2017 at 16:25
  • Sorry for double comment, still getting used to forum. Anyway, I'm not sure what to believe. Both IDs gmail. Apple support person said do not do any major changes to phone until around Valentine's Day. I told daughter to not even update apps. Why take chances? She is now playing DragonVale locally, as she used to. She only started that on GC in Sep/Oct.. She has 196 dragons, some rare. We have Park ID, hopefully if some thing goes wrong, it can be recovered. I am concerned how GC will change in month? Apple support person acted like I was too worried, that nothing will be lost. Still worried!
    – catmama3
    Jan 11, 2017 at 16:35
  • Updating the apps shouldn't be an issue if all of her purchases are there. Apple has been making changes to Game Center which may be why the support person suggested waiting until around Valentine's Day. See here for more Game Center information: imore.com/game-center.
    – Adam
    Jan 26, 2017 at 17:54

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