I recently discussed several iOS 18.1 features coming to an iPhone near you. We also discussed some AI features that will be released with iOS 18.1 and some AI features that are not yet ready to ship. Today, I found another useful feature. Apple will finally let you change your primary iCloud email ID with iOS 18.1. Thank both the old Gods and the new gods for this one.
How It Worked
Apple would allow you to set an iCloud email ID for the first time. Once set, there was no way to change that primary email ID and choose a secondary email ID. Anybody who wants to contact, share, or collaborate with you sees that email ID which is also associated with your Apple account – Apple ID.
If someone did want to change their Apple/iCloud email ID, they had to delete their primary id, create a new one, and then go through a verification process. Tedious.
Many users chose whatever email ID was available then without much thought. Apple didn’t allow adding a second email ID that you could switch to whenever you wanted to hide your primary email ID.
Apple did release an alias feature aimed at boosting privacy. Alias would allow users to send emails from a cloaked or masked email ID so the receiver wouldn’t see the sender’s real email ID. But that’s about it. iCloud users still couldn’t change their default iCloud email ID and choose a secondary ID.
Change Primary iCloud/Apple Email ID
Apple will now allow adding a secondary email ID to your Apple account and you can select either one as your primary email ID on the fly. The option is available in the Settings app itself making it easy to change iCloud ID from any Apple device like iPhone, Mac, or iPad.
Note that you will still be able to use your primary email ID to sign in to different Apple services while using the secondary email ID for communication, sharing, etc.
- Open Settings > name > Sign In & Security app or search for Email & Phone Numbers.
- You will see one email ID here and it is selected as your Primary Email. You will see an option Change Email Address.
- You will see a pop-up with Change and Remove Email Addresses option. Tap that to add a new email id and you can then select it as your primary.
Note: There is a security delay of 1 hour after which you can come back and add a new email id here.
iOS 18.1 will begin rolling out on 28th October. The developer beta version is available now if you want to test it out but I wouldn’t recommend it to all.
And that’s it, folks.
