I’ve been using Apple products for more than 25 years, and like many long-timers, I’ve been stuck with two Apple IDs because of it—and that’s made me feel like a second-class Apple citizen for a long time.
You see, when you’re stuck with two Apple IDs, your Apple services, emails, app purchases, media purchases, subscriptions, and even Apple Card can be haphazardly divided between the two accounts, making syncing a chore, not to mention remembering which account you bought which iTunes movie from, or which account is associated with which “Sign In With Apple” login.
At the beginning of this year, I was just sick of it . . . and then another issue arose: I tried to log into a website on my Mac with my Sign In With Apple login only to realize that some of my Sign In With Apple logins were tied to my first Apple ID on my iPhone.
It was then that I decided: If Apple wasn’t going to provide a way to merge Apple IDs, I’d do it myself.
A word of warning before I go any further: Manually merging two Apple IDs is hard work. You need to move around a lot of data and remember which data is tied to which account. If you make a mistake, you could wipe out years of important documents, photos, contacts, emails, and more. Also, if you merge your two Apple IDs—and only want to use one going forward—there could be a financial cost, because while you can manually move much of the Apple ID/iCloud data from one account to the next, any media or apps you purchased with one Apple ID cannot be transferred to your other Apple ID account.
Also, if your Apple Card or Apple Savings account is attached to the Apple ID account you want to retire, you cannot move it manually to your new Apple ID. You’ll need to pay off its balance or remove your savings, close the credit card and savings account, and then reapply for them under your other Apple ID.
