Make your Apple ID and primary email address one and the same

Question

I have an apple ID ending with mac.com with Gmail primary email address.
I am suggested make them the save. However, when pressing submit, it doesn't allow me.
Any idea? Thanks

Answer 1

calamaro wrote:
All that said, if I understand you correctly, although the @icloud.com email address is attached to my GMail AppleID and serves as my primary email address and login for that AppleID, it's actually a separate AppleID?
If so, that seems awfully confusing.
Yes, it can be confusing.  Since iCloud is just another Apple service and requires an account to use it, you already have to have an AppleID to even sign up for iCloud in the first place.  You used your gmail-related AppleID to do this.  Now, as part of the suite of services offered through iCloud, there is an IMAP email account, and you are prompted to create an email address to use with that account at the time you set up iCloud.  That email address is then automatically registered as an AppleID as are (and always have been) all Apple-owned domain email addresses.
You cannot replace the gmail AppleID address with the iCLoud email address as both are active AppleIDs.  Not to mention, that you cannot use an iCloud email address as your iCloud account login, since that email is just a consequence of having the account in the first place.
I've probably not cleared anything up with this post (clear as mud, as the saying goes).  But yes, your iCloud email address is in one sense merely a feature of the iCloud account you access and log in to using your gmail address AppleID.  It is also a quirk of the Apple system that the iCloud email address, once created, is also an AppleID. The curcularity of that relationships means you can never replace one with the other.