Apple users have long requested the option to transfer digital content—like movies and apps—between two accounts, and those wishes have now been granted. Whether you use two accounts in tandem, you’re moving from an old account to a new one, or another reason, you can now move your digital stuff between accounts.
There are some important caveats to bear in mind: iCloud data isn’t included, for example, so you need to take care of that separately. You’re also going to be abandoning any personalized recommendations in the secondary account after you move everything to a primary one. If this is something you need to do, here’s how to do it.
Before you get started
This process focuses on moving purchased apps, music, books, shows, and movies from one Apple Account (the secondary account) to another (the primary account). You need to know the email address or phone number for both accounts, as well as the passwords, and the accounts shouldn’t be shared with anyone else (as with Family Sharing, for example).
Two-factor authentication needs to be enabled for both accounts, and they both need to be set to the same country and region as far as purchases go. Make sure you’re running the latest version of iOS or iPadOS on your device—you need an iPhone or an iPad to complete this process.
As well as the purchases moving from the secondary to the primary account, the subscriptions and the payment methods do as well. If you’ve set up Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, this information will also transfer and replace the equivalent data on the primary account—so if this applies to you, make sure the primary account libraries are okay to be overwritten.
The secondary account sticks around, but you will no longer be able to purchase anything with it—all of that transfers to the primary account. If you have remaining credit in your secondary account (from a gift card, for example), then get it all spent and cleared before you start the migration process.
Finally, make sure you have payment information (like debit cards) in hand for both accounts before you get the migration started: You’ll be asked to verify the payment information as everything is moved over, and then going forward you can make all of your purchases from the primary account.
Migrating purchases
That’s quite a lot to take in before you get started, but the actual migration process is relatively straightforward. On your iPhone or iPad, open the Settings screen, tap your name, then tap Media & Purchases: This should be the secondary account, and a different one to the main account for the device.
If it isn’t, sign out first and then sign into your secondary Apple account here. You can then tap View Account, scroll down, and select Migrate Purchases. You’ll be given a chance to review all the information for both accounts, and everything you’re moving over, before the transfer gets started.
Apple doesn’t offer an estimate of how long everything’s going to take, but you should get a confirmation on this screen when it’s done. Emails will also be dispatched to the inboxes for both accounts, to say the process is complete.
At that point, you can then sign into the primary account in the Media & Purchases part of Settings. This is actually more of a merging of two accounts in some ways, rather than a transfer, so bear that in mind: It’s really for users who have older accounts hanging around and want to move to one single account.
You can undo a migration if you want, though not everything will be rolled back (payment information will be lost, so you’ll need to set that up again). If you want to undo a migration, go to Settings on your device and tap your name then Media & Purchases: Choose View Account and then Undo Migration to set the process going. If you undo a migration, you’ll be blocked from migrating again using the same accounts for a year.
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