If you’re juggling two Apple Accounts (formerly known as Apple IDs) on your iPhone and iPad, and struggling to figure out where your backups and digital purchases go, there’s an easy solution: You can combine the two. Not only that, but it’s much easier to do than before, as Apple has a support document that details the migration process.
As expected, it’s incredibly easy for such a tool to move your digital purchases from the secondary Apple Account to the primary ID, where you use iCloud features. It should “just work.”
However, as you might expect already, there are plenty of caveats. The process will “just work” if you ensure the stars align just right. Otherwise, you’ll have to figure out what needs to be fixed to get it all going. Luckily, Apple has you covered on that as well.
Found by Stephen Hackett, the support document is pretty straightforward. It explains who can migrate purchases between accounts and how the process works.
“If an Apple Account is only used for making purchases, those purchases can be migrated to a primary Apple Account to consolidate them,” Apple explains, noting that the migration tool is unavailable in the EU, UK, and India.
To start the process, you must fully control the two Apple Accounts. You’ll need to know “the primary email address or phone number and password for both accounts, and neither account should be shared with anyone else.” Both accounts must be set to the same country and region; otherwise, the transfer of digital purchases will not be supported.
You’ll have to sign in on your iPhone or iPad with both the primary Apple Account and the secondary Account. You’ll also need to ensure your secondary Apple Account, the one you’re moving digital purchases from, is in good order. That means you’ve spent your credit balance and completed rentals and pre-orders.
Once the conditions are met, you’ll need to follow these steps to migrate purchases from the secondary Apple Account to the primary one:
- On your iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app.
- Tap your name, then tap Media & Purchases.
- Tap View Account. You might be asked to sign in.
- Scroll down, then tap Migrate Purchases.
- Review the information about both accounts, then follow the tasks to complete the migration of purchases to the primary Account.
- When complete, you’ll see “Purchases Have Been Migrated“. The email addresses associated with both accounts will also receive a confirmation email.
- Be sure to check your Media & Purchases settings, sign out of the secondary Apple Account, and then sign in with the primary Apple Account.
Once the purchase migration is complete, you have to sign out of the secondary Apple Account from all devices where you might be logged in. The secondary Account can no longer be used for Media & Purchases, nor should you want to do it. That’s the whole point of the migration.
The process is reversible, so you can revive your secondary Apple Account if need be. A different support document.
Hopefully, you can transfer your digital purchases to your primary Apple Account on the first try. However, things can and will go wrong. The migration support document has a list of things to do in case the migration fails. These should steer you in the right direction and hopefully fix issues.
