This has been driving me crazy for years now. I've had the same iCloud account since my iPhone 5 I think and I've been wanting to update it and couldn't. I'm not sure if this is only in iOS18 but im running the latest dev beta on my iPhone/iPad.

I was able to go into my iCloud Mail settings, then select my alias, and select set Primary. It failed the first time I tried. Then after the second time it worked! iCloud mail flow was interrupted for a few minutes but then everything updated and worked.

I still see my old email in System Prefs but if I Logout/Login it will show my new primary email.

EDIT: screenshot added to comments!

Hello Everyone ✌🏻

TLDR

UPDATE 10/29

It looks like everything’s working as of official 18.1 release!

If you had an issue with Hotmail or legacy Apple email extensions, I’d give it another go!

Killing this account in favor of my new @caolthedesigner account.

Best everyone! —

I was able to change my primary iCloud email account (@icloudcom) to an iCloud alias that I preferred.

Ex. [email protected] ⟩ [email protected]

Previously, changing your primary iCloud account email to an alias was not possible. This may be a bug, it may be a feature, please attempt at your own risk. In the event this is a bug, there could be consequences.

It seems this is a feature on the Gmail and Outlook platforms, where an alias can be changed to the primary email.

In iCloud Mail settings and support pages, it's still listed that you can't change an alias to a primary.

Brief

I recently changed my name to a mononym which I’m very excited about, and really wanted to update my name everywhere, naturally.

My original Apple ID used my last name.

I made two aliases that I really enjoyed, using my first name only.

I tried changing my primary Apple ID to one of these aliases and it worked with no issue!

I’m now in the position where my primary iCloud email is listed as an alias and can be deleted (probably not advisable to do that though).

Why this matters to you

Maybe you've changed your name, like me, or your current ID doesn't represent you best now in life. This is potentially a way to change your Apple email without having to start fresh and lose access to your purchases and subscriptions.

Any educated devs or IT workers, please share your thoughts on the matter.

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How To

All the instructions can be found on apple except for the part where they say an alias can not be changed to a primary account, you just change it to your primary account. No hacks/tricks necessary, just a beta OS. No hacks or workaround necessary.

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

001
Make an Alias

002
Change your primary email to the Alias

I had to re-enter my password everywhere, but the alias shows as the primary account consistently in all apps.

Manual Changes Required

These are areas where I noticed my primary iCloud email was not immediately updated. Likely because in these instances, your email is logged as an identifier to you and isn't directly linked to your account/updated.

• iCloud Photos Shared Library

• Sign in with Apple

• Hide My Email (sometimes forward to lists old email, unsure)

• Apple Pay billing Hide My Email Forward To address in Settings

• Some Passkeys, specifically using Apple website

• Apple TV 4K didn’t update, required sign out then sign in

• Comment or DM if you find somewhere else the address does not auto update.

Notes

I was not able to change from one alias to another, and would have change back to my primary email address again to change to another alias.

From all the comments I’ve read through, it seems that you CAN NOT do this if you

• Are using a legacy Apple email suffix: ＠mac.com ＠me.com - I believe the servers don’t allow for the creation of new, old legacy email suffixes

• Created your account using a third party email suffix: ＠hotmail.com, yahoo.com, ＠gmail.com (not 100% confirmed)

One user had an issue with mail not working on device (worked in iCloud) but it resolved at midnight their time.

No, you can't merge two separate iCloud accounts together.

Also, once an iCloud account (I believe this includes aliases) is created, it can never be reused even after deletion.

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