Moving purchases between Apple Accounts now possible with Apple’s new migration feature
In what appears to be a positive change for Apple users, the Cupertino-based company on Tuesday published a new support document, first spotted by 512 Pixels’ own Stephen Hackett, entitled Migrate purchases from one Apple Account to Another Apple Account.
The page outlines a process by which users can move purchases between two of their different Apple Accounts, allowing for easier management of digital purchases and making it possible to control access to content that is perhaps inadvertently purchased on one Apple Account intended for certain uses, but that you wouldn’t normally use for purchases. Apple explains in the support post:
You can choose to migrate apps, music, and other content you’ve purchased from Apple on a secondary Apple Account to a primary Apple Account. The secondary Apple Account might be an account that’s only used for purchases. 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.
As it would appear, this feature isn’t intended for users to transfer information from one person to another, but rather for the single owner of two separate Apple Accounts that knows the primary email address or phone number and password for each of them to transfer digital purchases from one to the other. The change was made silently with no official announcements from Apple, suggesting that this was intended as a low-key change for a small subset of end users – not everyone is likely to have a use case for purchase migration.
For the magic to work, the user will need to be signed in with both Apple Accounts on their iPhone or iPad. Apple then lists the steps required to migrate purchases from one Apple Account to another, which looks something like this:
- 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.
There are eligibility requirements to be able to migrate purchases between two Apple Accounts, so you must make sure that you don’t meet one of the following disqualifying criteria:
- Neither Apple Account can be a child account created through Family Sharing.
- Neither Apple Account can already be used for migrated purchases.
- If you undo a migration of purchases from a secondary account, you won’t be able to migrate purchases again for 1 year.
- You can’t migrate purchases if both the primary Apple Account and the secondary Apple Account have music library data associated with each of them.
- You can’t migrate purchases if you’ve set your Apple One subscription to provide iCloud storage to a third, different account.
- If your primary account has never been used for purchases or free downloads, you can’t migrate purchases.
- You can’t migrate purchases from an Apple Account that’s been deleted or deactivated.
- You can’t migrate purchases if your Apple Account is locked or disabled.
- Neither Apple Account can be receiving any special access to apps or content. For example, an Apple Account enrolled in the VPP program through an employer to receive special access to apps.
Assuming none of the above apply to you, and you have two Apple Accounts, you should be able to try the migration process immediately. Please note that Apple Account purchase migration isn’t available in the European Union, United Kingdom, or India at this time.
Are you excited for the ability to migrate purchases made from one of your Apple Accounts to another? Discuss in the comments section down below.
Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/02/11/migrate-purchases-apple-accounts/
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