Changing Email for Apple Card

I recently changed the primary email on my Apple ID to get away from iCloud. I kept my old primary email (which was an iCloud email) on the account, as a secondary email, and changed the primary email. One thing to note, which will be important later, is that, from my understanding, it seems like you cannot remove an iCloud email without deleting it entirely.


When I made the update, everything worked fine for the most part, except I was still receiving Apple Card emails to the old email. After being passed back and forth between Apple Support and Goldman several times, I ultimately talked to a supervisor who wasn't clueless (the first 5 people unfortunately were unhelpful and a complete waste of a few hours). She seemed to be decently confident that I was receiving emails to the old email because it was still associated with my account, even as a secondary email. She said the only two options were to either delete the iCloud email off my account (thus deleting it entirely) or to close the Apple Card and open a new one. It goes without saying that this is an embarrassingly bad system. Wanted to share this information to at least document it. I know it's somewhat of a shot in the dark, but does anyone have any ideas as to a fix to this?

Posted on Mar 17, 2025 7:56 AM

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Posted on Mar 17, 2025 9:00 AM

In my experience from helping others do this exact same thing it takes much longer. Other community members have reported that it took 7 to even 10 days for the account details (email address, physical address etc.) to update.


On a different approach, let me explain how it’s done, and you tell me if that’s what you did.


The way to change email address for your Apple Account using your iPhone is to do the following,


  1. Go to Settings, then tap [your name].
  2. Tap Sign-In & Security.
  3. Tap your primary email address to make changes.
  4. To remove this email address from your account, tap Remove from Account. If you want to keep the current email address associated with your Apple Account but change to a different primary email address, turn off Primary Email.
  5. You’re prompted to choose another primary email address. You can either choose one of your other email addresses associated with your account as the new primary, or add a new primary email address.
  6. Follow the onscreen steps to enter and verify your new primary email address. Learn what to do if you didn’t get the email.


If you only have an Apple email address such as iCloud, .Mac etc. please note changes below.


You can change your iCloud email address using a device with iOS 18.1 or later, and iPadOS 18.1 or later.


If your only email address associated with your account is an iCloud email address, you won’t see an option to Remove from Account. Instead, you’ll see an option to Change Email Address.


Choosing this option changes only your existing iCloud email address. You’ll continue to be able to use your iCloud Mail and the messages sent to it. Your new iCloud email address replaces the old email address.


Change your Apple Account primary email address - Apple Support


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7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 17, 2025 9:00 AM in response to Devangbose

In my experience from helping others do this exact same thing it takes much longer. Other community members have reported that it took 7 to even 10 days for the account details (email address, physical address etc.) to update.


On a different approach, let me explain how it’s done, and you tell me if that’s what you did.


The way to change email address for your Apple Account using your iPhone is to do the following,


  1. Go to Settings, then tap [your name].
  2. Tap Sign-In & Security.
  3. Tap your primary email address to make changes.
  4. To remove this email address from your account, tap Remove from Account. If you want to keep the current email address associated with your Apple Account but change to a different primary email address, turn off Primary Email.
  5. You’re prompted to choose another primary email address. You can either choose one of your other email addresses associated with your account as the new primary, or add a new primary email address.
  6. Follow the onscreen steps to enter and verify your new primary email address. Learn what to do if you didn’t get the email.


If you only have an Apple email address such as iCloud, .Mac etc. please note changes below.


You can change your iCloud email address using a device with iOS 18.1 or later, and iPadOS 18.1 or later.


If your only email address associated with your account is an iCloud email address, you won’t see an option to Remove from Account. Instead, you’ll see an option to Change Email Address.


Choosing this option changes only your existing iCloud email address. You’ll continue to be able to use your iCloud Mail and the messages sent to it. Your new iCloud email address replaces the old email address.


Change your Apple Account primary email address - Apple Support


Mar 17, 2025 9:59 AM in response to Jeff Donald

Thanks for the reply. It’s good to hear that it might fix itself if I give it some time.


I did follow these steps and the change went thru successfully for all Apple emails other than Apple Card. I think the problem is that I still have the old email as a secondary email on the account. It won’t update to the new primary email, but I don’t want to remove the old iCloud email from the account entirely because that would delete the email

Mar 17, 2025 4:51 PM in response to Jeff Donald

Problem with trying to change my primary e-mail through Sign-In & Security is the new e-mail must be an iCloud.com email; it won't accept my legacy @yahoo.com e-mail as my primary e-mail (when I type in my e-mail it automatically adds in @iCloud.com at the end, so it looks like xyz@yahoo.com@iCloud.com, which, of course, they can't verify). Not sure what to do now, since I used my @yahoo.com to apply for an apple card, but now can't add it to my apple wallet which is logged in as @me.com which is now also legacy

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Changing Email for Apple Card

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