This is Not Your Primary iCloud Account

When I go to System Preferences -> iCloud, it says "This is not your primary iCloud account." I've seen this problem mentioned here a few times, but no answers, so I'll ask again. What does that mean? I was not aware I had more than one iCould account. The iCloud prefs panel only shows the one account, which is apparently not the primary one. The Details.. button does nothing. The Account Details button just shows the name on the account. How do I find out what my other iCloud account(s) is? Where did this other account even come from? How can I set my primary account so it works on my Mac?
Curiously, in the iCloud Settings on my iPad it says nothing about a primary account, and shows Bookmarks, iCloud storage, etc. all available (not available on my Mac). It shows the same name and email as my Mac does for the account, but no mention of it not being a primary account. Even more curious, I now seem to have 20 GB of storage through 9/30/50!

I had the same notice on my iMac. I checked my iPhone and that is where my primary account is happening. In my iPhone Settings > General > Usage, scroll down to iCloud click on Manage Storage > Change Storage Plan. This is where you will find what your storage is, and what you can purchase to upgrade.

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TS3988 incorrect this is not your primary icloud account

In preferences iclod icon shows incorrect primary account. When I select my mail a statement shows this is not your primary icloud account.
I am the primary account holder, I must have done something incorrect whe migrating to icloud.

Go at https://appleid.apple.com and login to verify your account settings. It is possible that your AppleID is different than your iCloud email adress and you can verify this on the AppleID webpage.

Getting "This is not your primary iCloud account" when it is and works on another MacBook

Hello,
I am seeing the following message in my iCloud preference pane:
"This is not your primary iCloud account"
When I know in fact it is my primary and my only account. I have it setup on my iPhone 4 and my work MacBook Pro and it is working correctly with the same account information on both of those.
Anybody else seeing this?

I found rebooting to be the KEY item in this process. As long as I didn't reboot, it would never complete the process. As soon as the account is deleted from the mail, calendar, and contacts list, reboot, THEN go to the iCloud prefs screen and set things up....it works.

ICloud settings tell me "This is not your primary iCloud account."

How do I fix this? It IS my primary account. I only have one, have only ever had one, the same one, same username, same password until kingdom come.

Never mind. I checked my iPhone and that is where my primary account is happening. In my iPhone Settings > General > Usage, scroll down to iCloudclick on Manage Storage > Change Storage Plan. This is where you will find what your storage is, and what you can purchase to upgrade.

Not your primary iCloud account message.

When I sign into iCloud on my desktop running Lion, I keep getting a message that says 'this is not your primary iCloud account'...
How do I find out what my primary account is, and how do I get it on my desktop?

I found rebooting to be the KEY item in this process. As long as I didn't reboot, it would never complete the process. As soon as the account is deleted from the mail, calendar, and contacts list, reboot, THEN go to the iCloud prefs screen and set things up....it works.

What do I do if it says "This is not your main iCloud ID" ?

I want to set "Find my Iphone" in my Mac but iCloud just lets me set my mail, contacts and calendars because it says "This is not your main iCloud ID" ? What can I do?

You are getting this message because you are attempting to create an iCloud account on a PC. You can only create iCloud account on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch) running iOS 5 or higher, or on a Mac running OS X Lion (10.7.5) or higher. After creating your account on one of these devices you will then be able to sign into the account on your PC.
If you have a 4S, go to Settings>iCloud and sign in with your Apple ID to create your account. Then sign in with the same ID on the iCloud control panel on your PC. It should be accepted this time.

How do I change the "primary iCloud account" on my iMac?

This issue has been bothering me for YEARS so I'd REALLY appreciate some help with this.
I started my cloud syncing use with MobileMe several years ago. At that time, I created an AppleID to purchase music on within iTunes and a 2nd AppleID to sync content using MobileMe between my iMac and iPhone. I used an old business name to for the account which was long and, since it's not longer a business, annoying to work with!
When the new iCloud service was launced and MobileMe shut down, I wanted to change the name of the MobileMe appleid to something shorter and more descriptive. By this time, my husband and kids had iphones and a Mac lap top had been added to the mix, so I really wanted to update this account name to make it easier for everyone.
At that time, you could not rename your AppleID if it was previously a MobileMe account. So rather than just keep the original account, I decided to create a THIRD AppleID with a name everyone could remember. When I did that, something interesting happended on my iMac. When I attempted to switch all of my syncing functions over the new iCloud account, I found that I could NOT. I could only sync Mail & Notes, Contacts and Calendars between all the devices with this new account. When I attempted to sync Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Find My Mac or iCloud Storage, I received the following message within my new iCloud account Mail set up area: "This is not your primary iCloud account. Only your primary account can use Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Find My Mac or iCloud Storage. So as it turns out, I had to keep BOTH accounts open and am now paying for storage on TWO iCloud accounts! Help!!
Obviously, I would like to convert all syncing operations to my NEWER iCloud account and DELETE this old MobileMe account. Apple has automatically updated the email address for this account to an "@icloud.com" address.
Any takers on this one?? I really appreciate anything you can share that might help!
Leanndra : )

I activated an iPad for a work associate; somehow, MY Apple ID account is assigned to his iPad's iCloud backup. His iPad is using up all MY iCloud space... he IS set up in App Store with his own Apple ID.
On my own iPad (just to check out what settings/options were), i went to "Settings/iCloud: and tapped "Delete Acct". BUT, then I got a message that all Photo Stream and documents stored in iCloud would be deleted from this iPad... so, two questions...
is there ANY way for him to retrieve the documents he saved in MY iCloud account (there's 9.1g worth of HIS backup in my account!! ... i purchased extra space before i realized it was being eaten up by him and not mine).
Because he'd be logging back in under his OWN ID which had never backed up his device before......so, he'll lose everything, right?
Really need someone who KNOWS apple iOS/Cloud workings to answer this one please ... much (at least some, lol) of his data is work-related.... at 9gig, can't be all work!! must be a lot of movies, photo's and music i'd guess. as this is a WORK-issued device, so be it if he has to re-load all that................

HT201317 I can`t find my "primary iCloud account". Not on my mac. Where?

Hi. I am trying to set up my Photo Stream in iCloud, but I get the message that "this mac is not your primary iCloud Account". And there is only "mail and notes", "contacts" and "Calender" available in my iCloud accont here. No Photo Stream. How do I fix this? Anyone who knows?
How do I find out what is my primary account? And how do I change it to this mac?
Looking forward to hearing from you out there!!!
Tove

Hi Winston and thank you. Well, - I have done what you say, - I go into System Preferences on my Mac - and there I find iCloud. What I see then i iCloud, - but there is only mail and notes, contacts and calendars there. It also says that this is not your primary iCloud accont. But the thing is - how do I make it primary, - so that I can get photo stream and and other stuff on my Mac - inside iCloud? Perhaps my iPhone or iPad is my primary iCloud account - or how does this work?
The thing I want is to see the photoes in iCloud at my Mac!!!
tove

IOS 7 Only Allows Find My iPhone with Primary iCloud Account

While iOS7 may be a big leap forwards in most respects, the "Find my iPhone" feature has taken a big step in reverse. This useful feature is NO LONGER AVAILABLE for use with secondary iCloud accounts, ONLY your PRIMARY account.
This may not be a huge concern for most users, because many (including most first-tier tech reps at Apple I've spoken to) seem to believe that you can only have one iCloud account on a device. NOT TRUE. While you can only have one PRIMARY account, you can add multiple additional iCloud EMAIL accounts (go to Settings/Mail, Contacts & Calendars/Add Account/iCloud). In the last iOS, once you created a new, secondary iCloud email address, you could activate many iCloud features for use with the new account, including Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Reminders, Notes, Safari Data (which never actually worked), and Find My iPhone. Under iOS7, however, Find My iPhone is no longer available. Instead, a small paragraph below the new iCloud email account setup screen says "Only your main account can use Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Documents & Data, Backup, and Find My iPhone."
Consider two cases where this is a huge problem.
1) We have a large number of company iOS devices that we need to keep track of.
2) Personally, I have an iPhone and iPad, and so does my wife. So do our kids!
In both the above cases, we created a secondary iCloud account, we'll call it "[email protected]", and added it as a secondary iCloud email address on ALL our iOS devices. In the setup screen we disabled everything EXCEPT "Find My iPhone". This account has a unique password, making it possible to see the location of ANY OR ALL the devices using the Find My iPhone App, WITHOUT having to share email, contacts, calendars, etc. among all these devices.
In our company, I can tract the location of any iOS device I gave to an employee, but his personal PRIMARY iCloud account is used to keep his mail, contacts, calendars, etc. secure. He shares this data between his iPhone and iPad, but NOT with everyone else. In my family, we all have our own primary iCloud accounts. I share mine between my iPhone and iPad; my wife and kids do the same. This allows us to keep our calendars, contacts, emails, etc. separated. But we all used the secondary iCloud email account ONLY with Find My iPhone. This allowed everyone in the family to see the location of everyone else, very nice in an emergency. Unlike the Find My Friends app, the device being located doesn't have to respond to a request to be found (very important when finding a lost or stolen device).
In both the above cases, we just log into the Find My iPhone APP on ANY iOS device, using the secondary iCloud account's email address and password (the email address is actually saved in the app, so you really only need to enter the password after the initial login). Viola! You can now see the location of any device that has that secondary iCloud account installed. And a person can still be untrackable if they wish, simply by turning off the Find My iPhone feature under the shared account's iCloud account settings on their device.
Alas, with iOS7 this is no longer possible. With the Find My iPhone feature only available for use with the device's PRIMARY iCloud account, there are only two ways to track another device:
1) Use the same primary iCloud account (which forces you to share other data and features you may not want to);
2) Log into the Find My iPhone APP with the PRIMARY iCloud email address and password of the person you want to track.
Either way, the person doing the tracking MUST have access to the PRIMARY iCloud credentials of the device they are tracking. This is a large security hole! Ask yourself: if you are a parent, do you really want your kids to have access to your primary iCloud account, including your mail, contacts, calendars, etc? Some people may not want their spouse to access that. In a company setting, do you want all your employees to be FORCED to share Documents & Data, Backup and Bookmarks, just to use the Find My iPhone feature? If they want to keep their mail, contacts, calendars, etc. separated from other employees, they will be forced to move these to a secondary iCloud account, which will no longer allow them to share Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Documents & Data or Backup. Why this ridiculous limitation?
The bottom line:Find My iPhone is now only useful for the primary iCloud account holder, and can no longer be used effectively between larger numbers of iOS devices, such as families or corporate institutions. This should be addressed in the next update to the iOS.

Brad, and everyone else, just to clarify my original post that started this thread, and offer a workaround or two: you CAN still locate, erase etc. any iOS device using Find My iPhone in iOS7, but the device you want to track or erase must EITHER use the same PRIMARY iCloud account as you do, OR you must log into the Find My iPhone app on your phone using THEIR primary iCloud account's username and password.
For parents, that's not a big deal, maybe just an annoyance: give your kids their own individual primary iCloud accounts, but you jot down their username and password in their contact info on your phone. Log Into FMI with that and track them.
The real pain is if you as an adult want others to be able to see where you are, WITHOUT also giving them access to your other iCloud info. For then to see you, THEY must either use the same PRIMARY iCloud account as you do, or they must have your username and password to log into the FMI app...which means they cal also see all your other stuff, even if you turn off the FMI feature on your phone. Anything you share with iCloud will be visible to anyone with access to your iCloud account.
For corporate users who want to track and manage company-owned iOS devices without having all of them use the same primary iCould account, this is a big pain. For families, imagine being on a vacation, or experiencing a disaster, accident, etc, where you'd really want everyone to be able to locate each other, even if they are unable to answer their phone or otherwise respond...a very real possibility in today's world. Now not so easy without compromising privacy and security.
I have three workarounds. The first two use Find My iPhone and so require everyone to use the same PRIMARY iCloud account.
1) the simplest thing is to go to your device under Settings/iCloud and toggle off anything you don't want others to see...but if you have multiple devices of your own (say an iphone and an iPad), this prevents you from sharing with yourself. Bummer.
2) It occurred to me today that with iOS6 there was a way to lock out changes to features in Settings. Sure enough, it still works with iOS7. Enabling this feature allow everyone to share the same PRIMARY iCloud account WITHOUT sharing other things you'd like to keep private. Enabling this feature will prevent the person with the device from making any changes to the Accounts on their device (Mail, Contacts, Calendars), so you'll need to think about what features of these accounts you WANT to allow before following the steps below. ALL THE FOLLOWING STEPS ARE PERFORMED ON THE OTHER DEVICES IN YOUR FAMILY/COMPANY, not your own.
A) I suggest entering airplane mode in Settings to prevent the device you are working on from downloading any of your iCloud info during this process.
B) Next, be sure YOUR PRIMARY iCloud account is listed on the person's device that you wish to track (kid's employee, etc). Go to Settings/iCloud to check this, and if necessary sign out of their iCloud account here and sign in with your primary iCloud account.
C) Add a second iCloud account using their personal iCloud email address (the one you just deleted as the primary). Set this one to share whatever they need to (their own Mail, contacts, calendars, etc). If they weren't previously using iCloud for anything but tracking and already had their own email account set up, you can omit this step.
D) Now, decide what features of your Primary iCloud account you do NOT want this person to be able to see or use (mail, contacts, calendars, etc). On THEIR DEVICE go to Settings/iCloud, and toggle OFF any of these things, but be sure to leave anything they need to share. A common issue here will be Photos. Since Photo sharing is now ONLY supported with the primary account, I suggest leaving this on, but you can still prevent them from seeing your new photos if needed. Tap the arrow to the right of Photos, and on the next screen toggle off "My Photo Stream", but leave on "Photo Sharing" which allows them to see, create and subscribe to other shared steams, just not your primary photostream. You can instead make this same Photo setting on your device, which has the same result. Or just disable Photos altogether. Whatever setting suits you the best.
Once you have decided which features of your primary iCloud account you'll allow this person to see, BE SURE YOU HAVE ALSO TURNED ON "Find My iPhone" here.
E) Lastly, go to Settings/General/Restrictions. Tap "Enable Restrictions". Enter a new password (twice- this is NOT the same password for the device, but only for locking and unlocking restrictions, so use a new one only you will know). Scroll down to the "Allow Changes" section and tap "Accounts." Tap to place a check next to "Don't Allow Changes". Exit from Settings.
You're done! Repeat the above steps on every device in your family or company you want to track. You will now be able to track all of them at one time using Find My iPhone on your device, from your primary iCloud account, and they will also be able to see your device location, but they will not be able to see any of your information as long as you toggled it off and then locked out account changes under restrictions. Be aware that they will not be able to add, delete or change any Mail accounts unless you unlock the restrictions. But you will likely have their own separate email account on this device (step C above).
3) if this is too much for you to handle, and tracking is your primary concern, in the App Store there is a free app called "Find my Kids - Footprints" . They just released a new iOS7 version which is unrated, but the previous version was reasonable well rated. After a trial it requires an annual subscription (which removes the ads, and it is VERY cheap), but it irks me to pay for a service that I used to get for free. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems to do a bit more that the Find my iPhone app as far as tracking...but it can't lock or erase your device. You'd still need to use their primary iCloud account for that. I'm sure we'll be seeing more apps like this in the near future.
Hope this helps.

Setup Primary iCloud Account Problems

I'm getting a message saying "To use this Apple ID as your primary iCloud account, delete it from Mail, Contacts & Calendars and sign in again". I'm stuck and don't know what to do. I have to Apple ID:
I just want to setup the mobileme account to my macbook pro as my primary iCloud account but i keep getting a message "tech****@me.com" is already signed in to iCloud". What to do?
<Edited by Host>

I just want to setup the mobileme account to my macbook pro as my primary iCloud account
You don't have to "setup" the account. Just sign on with your MMe account ID.
Apple IDs and iCloud
Frequently Asked Questions About Apple ID

Changing Primary iCloud Account ID

I just downloaded Mountain Lion and when it walked me through the iCloud process, I put my iTunes account ID in instead of my iCloud ID. When I try to log into my iCloud account on my Mac, it is saying that it is not my primary iCloud account ID. Does anyone know what to do?
Scottie B

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4895
https://discussions.apple.com/community/icloud/icloud.com
http://www.apple.com/support/icloud/
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/os_x_mountain_lion
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro

I cannot email photos from within iPhoto (v. 9.5.1). When I hit send I get a message: "Your email did not go through because the server did not reply." This happens for both my iCloud account and my Shaw account. What to do???

I cannot email photos from within iPhoto (v. 9.5.1). When I hit send I get a message: "Your email did not go through because the server did not reply." This happens for both my iCloud account and my Shaw account. What to do???

Are you able to email from Mail with those two accounts? If so:
1 - go to iPhoto's Accounts preference pane and delete both accounts. Now add them back and try again.
2 - a better solution IMO is to set Mail as the email client for iPhoto is iPhoto's General preference pane. This gives you better access to your contacts, a sent copy of all emails and, if you want a layout similar to iPhoto's, photo layouts located in Mail's stationary.

I'm battling to change my primary iCloud account on my mac, please help? I want to replace it with my secondary account by can't find a way to do this?

I'm battling to change my primary iCloud account on my mac, please help? I want to replace it with my secondary account by can't find a way to do this? Tony

System Preferences/iCloud - log out and then log in with your other ID.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3390335?tstart=0
Set up iCloud
Set up iCloud (2)

My original apple id is not an email address . I bought iCloud memory via that same account no problem. When setting up iCloud on iPad you cannot have a primary iCloud account unless it has an email address . Made new account but can you change originalI'

My original apple id is not an email address .
I bought iCloud memory via that same account no problem.
When setting up iCloud on iPad you cannot have a primary iCloud account unless it has an email address .
Made new account as per instruction ie [email protected] works fine
BUT as I want to utilise the money spent on the additional memory it would be great to use the initial account set up as my primary HOWEVER as far as I have tried the initial apple ID CANNOT be changed. Bit confused actually any usefull guidance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

See Here > Apple ID: Contacting Apple for help with Apple ID account security
Ask to speak with the Account Security Team...
lmerchant wrote:
My new phone has an old apple ID associated with iCloud only. I cannot delete the account as it has "Find my iPhone" turned on.
Activation Lock in iOS 7 > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5818

How do I delete the iCloud assigned to my iPhone that is not my main iCloud account and shares the same email address!? No Password.

I have my main iCloud account for iTunes and Mail etc.
On my iPhone I seem to have initiated a secondary iCloud account with a different AppleID, yet receive emails to the other/same email account as the primary iCloud account on my Mac.
I have gone through every password ever used and simply cannot access the account. Also I have requested the password reset verification via email, that gets sent, but never arrives.
I can access both email accounts without a problem.
If anyone has an idea what to do it would be magnificent.
...security questions cannot be answered since I took an alternative birthdate for security and have forgotten it. #seemedlikeagoodideaatthetime

Welcome to the Apple community.
If you are unable to remember your password, security questions, don’t have access to your rescue address or are unable to reset your password for whatever reason, your only option is to contact AppleCare(or Apple ID Support), upon speaking to an operator you should explain that your problem is related to your Apple ID, this way you will not be charged for assistance, even if you don’t have an AppleCare plan.

This is Not Your Primary iCloud Account

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