How To Change Your Apple Account's Primary Email Address Without Losing Your Sanity
Surely it can't be that complicated, right?
It took me nearly two months, three or four levels of support staff, multiple hours on the phone, multiple emails, submission of system diagnostics, and my very own ticket in Apple's internal issue tracking system, but I was successful. And I'm going to share the surprisingly nuanced set of steps required with you so you don't have to go through the same.
First, let's set the stage. I have a MacBook Pro that is signed into my Apple account at the system level. I do not own any iOS devices. I still have access to my account and both the old and new email addresses. For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll say the current primary email address of my Apple account is old@example.com and I want to change it to new@example.com.
Please read this post in its entirety before starting the process, because if you do something Apple doesn't like, you'll be locked out of the process for 24 hours.
Step 1: Sign into your account at https://account.apple.com in Safari on your MacBook Pro using old@example.com
Use your original primary email address, not literally old@example.com.
My preferred browser is not Safari but Firefox. However, Safari is special in Apple's eyes, so be sure to use it throughout. When signing in this first time only you may choose to use the dialog box that skips your email address and password and uses the system-level account to sign in. It will prompt you with a two-factor authentication code that appears in a system-level prompt.
Step 2: Add new@example.com to your account as a secondary email address
Obviously use your preferred new email address, not literally new@exmaple.com. You will have to verify the new email address using a link sent to that address.
Next to your current primary email address, there will be a tempting button labeled "remove". DO NOT PRESS IT YET!
Step 3: Sign out of your Apple account on the website in Safari
I know this seems counter-intuitive, but trust me.
Step 4: Sign into your account at https://account.apple.com in Safari on your MacBook Pro using new@example.com
DO NOT use the system-level account sign-in process at this stage. Use your new email address and password to sign in. You'll again be presented with two-factor authentication to complete your sign in.
Step 5: Click the "remove" button next to old@example.com
You will be prompted at this point to provide a replacement email address for your primary email address. It's at this point that you should provide new@example.com as your new primary email address.
Once again, use your actual new email address, not literally new@example.com.
You will receive a confirmation email at your new primary email address. If it asks you to click a link in the email to confirm the change, do so.
That's right. The trick for changing your primary email address is to sign in using a secondary email address. If you fail to follow this process and instead sign in using the old primary email address, this process will fail. If you attempt to complete this process with a browser that's not Safari, the ability to change your account may be locked for 24 hours.