Wish they’d allow the merging of 2 Apple IDs. About 20 years ago, when all things Apple were very different, I accidentally ended up w/2 Apple IDs. It happened when I was making a purchase at an Apple store. My “original” Apple ID had been for iTunes; the 2nd one was created at the Apple store for the purchase of my 1st iMac. Since then, I’ve had to keep track of both of them but there’s no way to merge them.
I’ve ended up using the iTunes one for what became media & app purchases; the other has become my “main” Apple ID, used for hardware purchases & my iCloud email account. Endlessly confusing.
Every couple years I call Tech Support to ask about merging the two accounts. I always get a bit of sympathy/empathy & understanding but am always told there’s no way around this issue.
Yeah, that’s been an issue since day one. I have a handful of Apple IDs for testing and iCloud addresses, but I’m very careful never to use any of the ancillary ones for anything unnecessary.
I’ve seen a report…here I think but maybe it was elsewhere…that a user got 2 IDs merged as a result of some issue that was on their end so they did the manual process to merge them. The poster said they were told there was no auto merge and thus unless they are cornered (the poster’s supposition, Apple dissent say so) it is ‘impossible’. We all know that on their end little to nothing is impossible, but I am guessing that their lawyers vetoed an auto merge thing to prevent complaints from users whose account was merged with somebody else’s account without their knowledge and approval. Seems like providing the password and a 2FA code they send to the other account email address would be adequate security…but lawyers ya know.
It being straight up impossible seems incorrect to me since Apple controls all that stuff…and root (or a admin account) can do anything.
I find it particularly confusing/annoying as I have to have both on my MacBook, iPhone, & iPad. The “main” one as it’s used for my iCloud account including email & the “media & app” one to keep apps updated.
I’ve tried multiple times & always have my call escalated to make certain I speak to someone at a higher level. There is a way that Apple can do it on their end but not 100%; I’d always lose access to something next time I buy a new device or MacBook, probably past media & app purchases. They’re willing to do it but there’s such a big caveat as to what I’d lose access to that it’s never been worth doing.
Also, if they do it, you can’t log into your iCloud account for up to 30 days while they’re working on it. I can’t afford to lose email & messages access for 30 days.
Yes, a bit frustrating. It’s probably fairly common for people who work with Macs to have both a work and a personal Apple ID. It would be nice to be able to merge them if you left your employer or retired. Given how long this has been a restriction I doubt it will ever be available.
Well, I would argue that if you have two separate IDs, that the purpose is to keep your work and personal lives separate. Assuming you can actually do so, I’d expect that on the termination of employment, you’d want to close down that ID or give its credentials to the company, just like you would with a company laptop, phone or e-mail address.
But maybe I’m overthinking this.
My position might be different to others as I worked in a ‘family’ company for most of my working life. They would be happy for me to keep any Apps I bought on the ‘company’ account and there’s no security implications, but it’s so annoying juggling accounts I ended up buying many of the Apps again on my personal account.
My original Apple ID goes back to when they first started (.Mac). I. ended up ditching it and starting afresh with an iCloud email address just as a way or organising things better.
FWIW, I still have my ‘company’ laptop, phone and email address 
and still do contract work for them.
My misery is high today. I’m trying to clean up Music after ongoing frustrations.
Problem is I have hundreds of songs in my library with a cloud status of Ineligible - despite the purchase date being clearly displayed (these go as far back as 2005).
It’s possible I bought these with a different ID but I have no way of knowing - Apple doesn’t show the account. Now if I’d been able to merge my accounts way back when, this wouldn’t be happening.
If you have local copies of the tracks, the free exiftool will easily show the “Apple Store Account” for a track–it will be near the end of the list of all available metadata:
user$ exiftool filepath
Using the command line options you can have it give you a list for a directory or nested directories and only show the metadata items you want. You can also have it replace data with other data, though I doubt that would make tracks work with apple, because they presumably favor their own data as correct.
If you don’t have local copies but have an older mac with iTunes, or install iTunes via Retroactive, you can find the apple account for a track in Get Info / File section, but at least in itunes 12.n, I can’t find a way to show it in a list view column. I think much earlier versions did let you do that. In Catalina Music app, it doesn’t show the ID at all, just ‘Purchased’. I think there might be a Doug’s Applescript to show them in iTunes so you can find and sort, but I can’t find it off hand.
This is part of my frustration w/my 2 Apple IDs. I don’t use the Apple Music plan but I do use what used to be called iTunes. It’s filled w/thousands of songs, also going back about 20 yrs. Some, from the very early days, was ripped from previously owned CDs, the rest was purchased thru iTunes & possibly, in the very beginning, from Amazon music. While most of the iTunes music was purchased w/my secondary Apple ID, some might have been purchased thru my main Apple ID.
If I give up my secondary Apple ID, I lose access to lots of purchased music. Not immediately but the next time I purchase a new device I won’t be able to transfer the music. This shouldn’t be so hard.
After much searching I’ve been able to find the original AppleID and can now play the ‘Ineligible’ songs. It would be so much easier if I could move them to my current ID.
I have no idea why some are still displaying as ‘Waiting’. These can’t be played. I have tried ‘Update Cloud Library’ in Apple Music with no change.
Doug’s various “Track Down Purchases” scripts will search all songs in an Apple iTunes/Music library, identify the account used to purchase each song, and then create playlists containing the songs purchased by each account.
For Big Sur and newer, use Doug’s Track Down Purchases v5.x. Catalina users should use v4.4, which is available toward the bottom of the v5.x page.
For iTunes users on Sierra through Mojave, use Track Down Purchases v3.8. A version for macOS 10.10 and 10.11 also is available from that page.
They work very well!
Equipped with such playlists you could burn audio CDs (yeah, remember that?) and then re-import so you strip all DRM baloney and once again can play your music alongside music purchased with the AppleID you would like to use primarily.
I feel for you guys stuck with multiple AppleID purchases and no means to consolidate. I’m sure technically a fix would be doable and Apple would certainly be well equipped to do it. I’m also quite certain the reason that can’t happen is because of the lawyers and myopic interpretation of licensing terms. Frustrating.
… But with the downside of re-compressing the audio, somewhat reducing the quality, unless you re-rip using a lossless format (WAV, AIFF or Apple Lossless).
On the other hand, I’ve done it and with the parameters I use (128K variable bit-rate), the results sound the same to my ears. But I’d make sure to only do this from the original Apple download, since errors accumulate over time with each recompression.
I still have a ‘SuperDrive’ here somewhere so this is a very real option.
And if you don’t, any USB CD burner will work.
I used to do this, the audio CD route, but some later version of iTunes removed this capability, which was apparently some sort of a contract arrangement. (The quality wasn’t important, because I only used it for audiobooks.)
Are you sure? Apple got rid of the big “burn” button with the fallout shelter icon on it, but disc burning still exists. It’s now a menu item available from any playlist:
Of course, if you want to burn an audio CD, make sure your playlist is short enough to fit on the disc. Not the 7+ hour playlist in my screen shot.
Come to think of it, it might have been specific to audiobooks. I don’t really do music.