It’s Finally Easy to Change Your Apple Account Email Address
Our world may change quickly, but some things truly remain the same. Take your Apple account (formally Apple ID) for example: whether you created your first Apple account this year or created it back in 2011, it’s probably been tied to one all along and the same email address. That’s by design: Apple never wanted you to change your email addresses for any reason. This isn’t a problem if you’ve kept the same email address all these years, but it’s a problem if you haven’t or don’t want to. people see this email address when they come across your account.
As MacRumors reports , that’s now changing: Starting with iOS 18.1, Apple will now allow you to set a “primary” email address for your Apple account. This primary address will be the one you receive emails from Apple at, as well as the address associated with your iCloud activity. For example, when you open a shared document, other participants will see that email, and the same goes for iCloud-based calendar invitations. It’s also the one that allows other people to contact you via iMessage, FaceTime, and Game Center.
For the first time, you can even delete an email from your Apple account. If you’re truly done with the email you sent when you signed up for your account, you can delete it permanently.
Personally, I think this is great news. Many of us use the same email address for years without an easy way to change it. (Previously, you could delete your Apple account email address, but you had to go through an entire verification process to choose a new one.) Apple allowed users to add additional email addresses to their accounts, which you were able to use for things like iMessage and the like, but here the keyword is extra . Your primary address was still the same email address and would be visible from time to time, even if one of your secondary addresses was used for everything else Apple-related.
How to Change Your Primary Apple Email Address
To change the email address on your Apple account, you’ll need iOS 18.1 or later. iOS 18.1 is currently in beta, so you need to install the beta version. I don’t recommend running the beta on your main iPhone, as running software in the testing phase always carries risks. But once iOS 18.1 arrives on your iPhone, here’s what to do.
First, open Settings, then select your Apple account at the top. Next, select Sign-in & Security , then go to Email & Phone Numbers . From here, follow the onscreen instructions to change, set, or remove your email address from your account.