iCloud.com won't verify my mac.com email OR let me switch to a me.com/icloud.com alias

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iCloud.com won't verify my mac.com email OR let me switch to a me.com/icloud.com alias

In the last few months any time I have tried to log in to iCloud.com I've gotten a message during the login process that says I need to verify the email associated with my AppleID, which is a mac.com address. When I ask to be sent an email so that I can verify it, the system says one is sent, but it never shows up (not in my Inbox, Junk, or any of the other folders I can access on my iPhone). I can't check for it any other way, since I would need to log in to iCloud to check for it, but iCloud says I need to get the email in order to log in.

I know it's not a problem with my AppleID, because when I enter the mac.com email address and my password, I get a two-factor verification number sent to my iPhone. I say to allow the conection and enter the number in iCloud.com, at which point I get a pop-up which says "Your Apple ID email address must be verified before you can sign in."

As I said, if I enter my mac.com address, the system says an email has been sent, but it never shows up. When I tried to enter the @me.com or @iCloud.com aliases, thinking maybe mac.com is no longer supported, I got an error message that says "the application type specified is unacceptable."

It does give the suggestion that I can change my AppleID, which is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE as a solution. The last time Apple forced me to change my AppleID I lost all of my iTunes purchases and their tech support was unable to restore them, even though I spent hours on the phone over the course of two weeks trying to do so. I'm NOT going through that again, so need a solution that allows me to keep my current AppleID.

iPhone XR, iOS 14

Posted on Sep 20, 2020 4:29 PM

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Sam Ritchie Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 22, 2020 2:35 PM in response to Sam Ritchie

Just had a support call and was able to resolve this issue, so coming back to share what fixed it for anyone else who might be experiencing the same problem.

After confirming what I had described (i.e. can't login to iCloud.com, can't verify email, can't change to me.com/icloud.com) the tech had me try the same things at appleid.apple.com. When those didn't work, we tried logging in with a different alias - I picked the me.com version, using the same password as I used for the mac.com one - and verifying again with the mac.com email on file. That also didn't work, but when I entered the same me.com email that I'd just used as my AppleID, it allowed the change, instantly verified and got me into the account. I went and logged in to iCloud .com using the me.com alias and got in without any further problems.

TL;DR: iCloud kept asking me to verify @mac.com email address associated with my @mac.com AppleID, but didn't send a verification email or let me switch my email to @me.com/@iCloud.com aliases. Logged in using @me.com alias and switched the email for verification to match and it worked.

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