Apple Account purchases of apps, music, and other content have historically been non-transferable between accounts. Apple today published a new support document describing how users can migrate purchases between Apple Accounts.
If an Apple Account is only used for making purchases, those purchases can be migrated to a different account, allowing users to consolidate their Apple Accounts. After completing the migration, users will be able to download the purchased apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books. Even subscriptions will be migrated along with the other purchased content. iCloud data will not be migrated since it is not tied to purchases. It is important to note that the following migrated content will replace the content on your primary account:
- The secondary Apple Account’s music library data, personalization profile, social profile, and Apple Music Replay in the Apple Music app will migrate and replace the music library data, personalization profile, social profile, and Apple Music Replay of the primary Apple Account. If you already have a music library on your primary Apple Account, then nothing will change.
- The secondary Apple Account’s Up Next queue in the Apple TV app will migrate and replace the Up Next queue of the primary Apple Account.
- The secondary Apple Account’s podcast library data in the Apple Podcasts app will migrate and replace the podcast library data of the primary Apple Account.
However, this feature is not available to users in the European Union, United Kingdom, or India. Additionally, Apple will not allow users to migrate their purchases in the following scenarios:
- Neither Apple Account can be a child account created through Family Sharing.
- Neither Apple Account can already be used for migrated purchases. Learn how to undo a migration of 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. Learn about Apple One and iCloud storage.
- 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.
This new feature offers greater flexibility for Apple users managing multiple accounts, though the various restrictions and regional unavailability may limit its adoption.
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