Using the same account for multiple Macs?

I have two Macs at home that I download apps to with my personal account and I also have an iMac and MBP from work that I want to start downloading apps to. Should I use my existing personal account or should I create a new account? Does it make a difference if I download 4 copies of the same free app to 4 different macs?
Thanks.

Does it make a difference if I download 4 copies of the same free app to 4 different macs?
No as long as you use the same Apple ID they were purchased wtih.
How to re download apps from the Mac App Store:
Open the App Store. From the menu bar click Store > Sign In
Click Purchases from the top of the App Store window.
Select which apps you want to re download. Then right or control click where you see Installed then click Install.
If you create another account, it's sure to cause confusion.
You may want to backup your purchases > Mac App Store: Backing up your app purchases

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How do I change the icloud account on my iphone? I want to use the same account for all my apple devices (macbook air and imac and iphone). I can't see where I can amend the iphone account because it is in grey?

I want to use the same account for all my apple devices (macbook air, imac and iphone). I can't see how I can amend the iphone account because it is in grey? I also can't remember the password for this account so i can't even delete it and start again?
Help!
Thanks

Deleting an iCloud account only deletes it from the Device, not from iCloud. In iOS 8, the name of this setting changed to "Sign Out" as that is a better reflection of what actually happens. Your iCloud data remains on the server, available to devices still signed into the account, but the device you sign out of the account on is disconnected from the account, and as a result, the iCloud data from that account is removed from the device. It will redownload to the device should you sign back into the account.
The only issue you'll run into when you switch between accounts is with my photo stream photos older than 30 days. When you delete (or sign out of) and account, your photo stream photos are deleted along with the other data from the account in question. However, unlike other data which remains on the server and can redownload to your device when you sign back in, my photo stream photos only remain in iCloud for 30 days. When you sign back in, you will only get back my photo stream photos added in the last 30 days (as older photos are no longer in iCloud to redownload). Like other account data, any my photo stream photos on your other devices signed into the account are unaffected by this. If you want to keep older my photo stream photos on your device as you change iCloud accounts, save them to your camera roll before deleting (signing out of) the account.

HT4245 i use a macbook pro which came with facetime i have an iphone 4S as well. whenever i use the wireless on my iphone i can facetime with ease however when i use the same wireless for my mac to facetime the call always gets disconnected.

i use a macbook pro which came with facetime i have an iphone 4S as well. whenever i use the wireless on my iphone i can facetime with ease however when i use the same wireless for my mac to facetime the call always gets disconnected.

To use factime on your Mac, I believe you will need to use your email address to do so instead of your wireless number. Since you can't make calls on the Mac.

I am using the same account for both my Apple TVs but not able to open the movie I purchased on both tvs?

I have two Apple TV's one in my living room and one in our bedroom. I purchased a movie series on the tv in the living room but was not able to open on the tv in the bedroom. I am using the same account for both Apple TV's. Can anyone assist?

Wecome to the Apple Community.
For the avoidance of doubt, are you able to play the TV show on the Apple TV on which you bought it and it is a TV show and not a movie is it.
What do you mean can't open it, what exactly happens.

How do use the same crop for multiple images.

I have a number of images that I want to use the same crop on. Instead of go through the whole slow process for each image is there a way to use the same crop for all of the images?
And in iPhoto there was a way to copy the adjustment settings to multiple images, I can't see how to do that in aperture.

Use the "Lift&Stamp" tool:
Crop one image.
Lift the crop using the "Lift" tool.
Select the other images.
Stamp the crop adjustment to all of them.
But caution: By default "Lift" will copy all Metadata tags and all adjustments, but the gps data. If you only want to transfer the cropping rectangle, deselect all lifted items but the crop adjustment before stamping.
Regards
Léonie

Is it safe to use the same passphrase for multiple disks?

I have a very elaborate passphrase using letters, digits and punctuation marks that I'm fairly confident nobody will ever be able to crack even if they have the seed and hash and a couple of million GPU's to throw at it.
However, from a cryptography course I know that if two "messages" have been encrypted using the same "pad", you will be able to extract information by or-ing the messages, for example.
Now I'm sure that the encryption scheme in OS X is much more sophisticated, but just to be sure:
If I encrypt two disks using the same passphrase, and somebody steals both disks, would that make it easier for them to crack it? Is there some way they could exploit the fact that the passphrases are the same? Could they find data by combining the data on the two disks?
I assume it's not possible, but just checking.

Short answer: don't worry. AES-256 is currently a secure scheme.
Long answer: If your reference to a "pad" is to the reuse of a so-called one-time pad scheme, that's a very different cryptographic system than what's typically used now, and the attacks against a reused one-time pad are different sorts of cryptographic attacks.
If you're using a one-time pad for a whole disk, you either need a ginormous one-time pad that's itself as big as the disk, or you'll get data that's repeated; a typical disk has great wads of zeros and ranges of blocks of zeros, after all.
In modern systems, it's quite common for the same private key to be used for thousands and even millions of messages, when asymmetric encryption is used.
Now I don't know which encryption algorithm is currently being used to encrypt DMGs, but I'd suspect it's still AES-grade encryption.
AES works very hard at making the results of the encryption process as close to random as it can manage, which reduces the exposure to frequency-based attacks. (This is also why effectively-encrypted data can't be compressed; there should be no repeats.) This randomness is part of the basis for the attacks against the one-time pad; that the output of the pad - the encrypted data - if the one-time pad is re-used - isn't really random. Particularly if you know (or can guess) some of the cleartext, too. Or those big blocks of zeros.
Now the other central discussion here is around how much somebody would pay to decrypt your data. Because if your data is worth enough to the attacker, then there can potentially be other ways to attempt to gain access, even if AES itself isn't breached.
If you're storing some very valuable data (worthy of attacks), then receiving guidance from some yutz like me in an Apple forum probably isn't in your best interest. But if you're not storing miltary-grade, or financial secrets, or identifying medical data, or credit card data, then AES-256 will do nicely. And even if you are, AES-256 might be enough. But check with the crypto and legal folks for details, or with your site security officer.
And as was correctly noted in an earlier reply, if a password is used once, and once known, an attacker will try it against other systems and servers. This being another common form of re-use.
If you're interested here, then get one or two of Bruce Schneier's books on crypto. If you don't already have them.

HT4759 Is it true that when setting up devices with the find my phone app you must use the same account for ICloud ? If so how do I delete a current account to make it read as the other ICloud accounts?

I'm setting up my devices with the find my phone app. I have accomplished setting up 2 devices. The third I can't setup because I can't change the iCloud account.
My understanding from reading that the iCloud accounts must use the same name on all devices. How do I change that account in my phone settings?

You don't have to use the same iCloud account in order to track all your devices. You just have to sign into the iCloud account being used on the device you are trying to track in order to track it. When you sign in on icloud.com and open Find My iPhone, you will see all the devices with Find My iPhone enabled that are using the account you signed in with. To track a device using a different account, simply sign out, then sign back in using the ID the new device is using.
The Find My iPhone app works the same way. It will display devices based on the iCloud account you sign in with on the app. To track a device using a different account, sign out, then sign back in with the iCloud ID that the new device is using.

Using the same library for multiple iTunes IDs

My wife and I have the same exact library. When she buys something, my computer/ipod/devices are authorized to use it. We both got new laptops and we wanted to refrain from adding too much on them. I have an iMac with the music library on it. I signed up for iTunes match so that I could have my library on my devices and our Apple TV. So the question is, how can I get the same library on her devices, without uploading this library to her laptop?
Can I simply log out of iTunes on the iMac and then log in as her and sign up for iTunes Match under her ID and go through the process again and all is done?
We'd like to maintain the separate IDs as she purchases apps on her own and then has a lot of podcast subscriptions that I don't. But again, just trying to get the shared library to her device.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.

No, there is no way to do this at this time, and if you make a mistake trying, you can screw yourself up and end up locking yourself out of Match.
Apple makes a subtle and extremely annoying distinction between "authorization" and "association". You need "authorization" to play content on a particular computer, and several users with different Apple IDs can authorize their content on a single computer.
However, to do any of the following:
-auto-download content
-download previously purchased content
-use Match!
you must "associate" the computer to an Apple ID in addition to "authorizing" it. Only *a single AppleID* may be associated with a computer (not account, computer!) at a time, and this can only be changed once every 90 days. In other words, in this context, it treats the computer just like a mobile device. You can't run Match with more than one user, and Match also precludes anyone else from downloading previously purchased content.
I recently learned about this the hard way when my son came home from college and used his Apple account to re-download a single TV show on my computer. When I logged in later to try to use Match, a splash informed me I would have to wait *90 days* to switch back to my AppleID! Luckily, I emailed the iTunes store and they were able to reset it. I'm not sure if they have single incident forgiveness policy, if they were able to see exactly how much money I've put in their pockets over the last couple years, or if they were simply smart enough to realize that *not* doing so could only lose them money in the future.
Add to this the fact that you now "associate" (with a different definition) your AppleID with your *user account* to use cloud services, and you have three different and inconsistent ways your AppleID is used on a computer.
Hopefully, Apple will clean all of this up at some point.

How to use the same script for multiple buttons

Hi,
I've only just started using flash so any help would be great!
I'm creating a blockbusters type game, I have a grid of 20 buttons and I need them (individually) to turn blue on click and red on double click. I've managed to do it with the first one using this code;
var clicked:Boolean = false;
bn1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, bn1click);
function bn1click(event:MouseEvent):void {
    clicked = true;
    var newColorTransform:ColorTransform = bn1.transform.colorTransform;
    if(clicked){
    newColorTransform.color = 0x064258;
    bn1.transform.colorTransform = newColorTransform;
bn1.doubleClickEnabled = true;
var doubleclicked:Boolean = false;
bn1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK, bn1dclick);
function bn1dclick(event:MouseEvent):void {
    doubleclicked = true;
    var newColorTransform:ColorTransform = bn1.transform.colorTransform;
    if(clicked){
    newColorTransform.color = 0xac1e23;
    bn1.transform.colorTransform = newColorTransform;
Now I'm having trouble getting the same to work for the rest of the buttons, they are each named bn2, bn3 etc. They need to work individually and remain blue/red once clicked. I've tried listing them as addEventListener commands but not having a great deal of success!
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Tomo

One way to do this is to use arrays to keep track of the buttons and their properties.
var buttonList:Array = new Array(bn1,bn2,bn3);
var clickedList:Array = new Array();
var doubleClickedList:Array = new Array();
//then use a for loop to assign the functions and properties for each button:
var thisMany:int = buttonList.length; // this will give you the number of items in the buttonList array
for(var i:int = 0; i<thisMany; i++) {
     buttonList[i].addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,btnClick); // assign the click function to each button
     buttonList[i].addEventListener(MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK,btnDClick); // assign the double click function
     clickedList.push(false); // add a false value for each button to this array
     doubleClickedList.push(false);
           buttonList[i].doubleClickEnabled = true; // set the double click property for each button
function btnClick(event:MouseEvent):void {
          var thisButton:int = buttonList.indexOf(event.target); // figure out which button was clicked as an item in the array
          clickedList[thisButton] = true; // change the value in the array
           var newColorTransform:ColorTransform = buttonList[thisButton].transform.colorTransform;
    if(clickedList[thisButton]){
    newColorTransform.color = 0x064258;
    buttonList[thisButton].transform.colorTransform = newColorTransform;
function btnDClick(event:MouseEvent):void {
          var thisButton:int = buttonList.indexOf(event.target);
          doubleClickedList[thisButton] = true;
    var newColorTransform:ColorTransform = buttonList[thisButton].transform.colorTransform;
    if(doubleClickedList[thisButton]){
    newColorTransform.color = 0xac1e23;
    buttonList[thisButton].transform.colorTransform = newColorTransform;
Now you can have any number of buttons, just add their instance names to the array at the top.

I just downloaded iCloud on my MacBook Pro and iPhone. How do I get it downloaded to my MacBook Air? I use the same accounts for all three devices.

I just downloaded iCloud on my MacBook Pro and iPhone. How do I download it to my MacBook Air from either of these devices?

Just set it up on your MacBook Air as indicated here:
http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/mac.html

Can I load movies from one Mac to another using the same account?

I know that you can retireve purchased items, such as music, apps, books & TV shows and load them onto multiple computers, however I can't seem to do the same with Movies. I have purchased some movies on another computer, and want to transfer it over to a second computer, too, that uses the same account.
Can I do this?

Films can currently only be re-downloaded in the US (and I don't think that all films can be re-downloaded there). You can copy them over via, for example, a flash drive or external drive to your other computer and add them to that computer's iTunes via File > Add To Library, or you might be able to copy them over home sharing if your computers are on the same network.

I want to use the same name for my icloud email address as my .mac name

My name for all of my yahoo, gmail, .mac email accounts are al the same. I'd like to use the same name for my icloud account. It tells me that the name is not available but I'm pretty sure no one else would have chosen it. Is the fact that I've used it for my .mac email address somehow blocking it's availability? Please help. Thanks.

There is some confusion in my mind about your post. Let me describe what I think you mean, let us know if I misunderstood...
I'm assuming you already have an Apple ID that you used to define an iCloud account (or an older dot mac account), and the iCloud account has "[email protected]" as its email address. But the Apple ID for this account is not the same as the email address I just listed, perhaps your apple ID is something like "xyz@???.com" and what you want is to use the ID, "mySpecialName@???.com". [the "???" could be mac, icloud, or something else]
If I've got it right so far, then when creating a **new** Apple ID, you must now use @icloud.com. If you are trying to define "[email protected]", then that is the problem - "mySpecialName" is already associated with @icloud.com, because your current @mac.com also has [email protected] as an alias, so that name is no longer available.
Also, you cannot change the current ID from "xyz" to "mySpecialName" on an existing account. So either way, you can't get the ID that you desire.
Let us know if this is not what you mean.

I am updating iphoto 9.1 to 9.3 and every time when I clicked for update aps store asked to open it in the account where you purchased. I am using the same account and its available in the purchased item of this account. Can someone resolve this problem.

I am updating iphoto 9.1 to 9.3 and every time when I clicked for update aps store asked to open it in the account where you purchased. I am using the same account and its available in the purchased item of this account. But in my purchased item library it indicates that you update iPhoto. I am not sure which account the aps store asking. Can someone resolve this problem.

Contact App Store support. They're the folks who can help with Account issues.
Regards
TD

HT4314 I have a iPad and iPhone with the same Apple ID, but on Game Center I have used the same id for both devices and they are two different profiles and I was wondering how to have one of the accounts on both devices.

I have a iPad and iPhone with the same Apple ID, but on Game Center I have used the same id for both devices and they are two different profiles and I was wondering how to have one of the accounts on both devices.

Hi Jamesdwills,
Welcome to the Support Communities!
If you are using the same Apple ID on both devices, the Game Center profile should be the same.
Check out this information from the iPad User Guide. Try signing out of the Game Center on both devices and then sign back in with the correct Apple ID:
Using Game Center
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4314
Game Center settings - iPad User Guide
http://help.apple.com/ipad/7/#/iPad9a13d039
Game Center settings
Go to Settings > Game Center, where you can:
Sign out (tap your Apple ID)
Allow invites
Let nearby players find you
Edit your Game Center profile (tap your nickname)
Get friend recommendations from Contacts or Facebook
Specify which notifications you want for Game Center. Go to Settings > Notifications > Game Center. If Game Center doesn’t appear, turn on Notifications.
Change restrictions for Game Center. Go to Settings > General > Restrictions.
Cheers,
- Judy

I just got an iPhone 5S, now when I try to use my old iPad the apps won't work because they are syncing with my new phone. Can I have the same account for an old iPad and a new iPhone?

I just got an iPhone 5S, now when I try to use my old iPad the apps won't work because they are syncing with my new phone. Can I have the same account for an old iPad and a new iPhone?

Connect your iPad to iTunes on the computer you usually Sync with and “ Check for Updates “...
If an Update Appears Install it... if not... you are up to date for your particular Device...
See the Using iTunes Section Here...
How to update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
Make sure you have the Latest Version of iTunes (v11) Installed on your computer
iTunes free download from www.itunes.com/download

Using the same account for multiple Macs?

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