Apple ID Help Please

[scz4]

Evening all,

Need help with this one, totally lost with the entire Apple thing.

So my daughter has got an iPhone for her 13th birthday. Never had an iPhone before or any Apple products.

When I go to create her an Apple ID using her Gmail address it says "This email address is not available. Choose a different address."

Ok, so tried the "Recover Your Apple ID" option, but no idea what number it's tied to, not hers anyway. It says "‎(•••) •••-••71", but unsure if this is a generic number as an example, but appears to be in US mode looking for 001 (phone settings is UK for location)

What can we do? Would rather avoid creating her a second Gmail account.

G

[LunarOne]

It probably wants you to create an icloud email address - something like [e-mail]

[scz4]

LunarOne said:

It probably wants you to create an icloud email address - something like [e-mail]

I like the username suggestion

Will try this, although the box says "[e-mail]", surely it would [e-mail] if that's what it wants.

[scz4]

Not that

"Your Apple ID cannot end in @icloud.com. Choose a different email address."

[lyricalgangster]

I had a similar issue - forgot password and account linked to an old number I had no memory of, with no possibility of finding what it was.

Basically tried all avenues, spent hours on phone to support, but still had to factory reset phone and create new Apple ID.

Pain in the butt.

[scz4]

lyricalgangster said:

...... and create new Apple ID.
.

To a brand new email address you created?

[lyricalgangster]

scz4 said:

To a brand new email address you created?

Yup, 'fraid so...

[scz4]

So thought I'd use my email address to get it up and running.

"This email address is not available. Choose a different address." If I add a load of random digits the error goes away.

Ok, so thinking about it, maybe I have AppleID going back to an iPod I had 15+ years ago. Great, will just reset the password then.

Nope! "This Apple ID is either not valid or not supported."

So which is it? Arghhhhhh

Edited by scz4 on Wednesday 22 November 21:42

[RGG]

scz4 said:

Evening all,

Need help with this one, totally lost with the entire Apple thing.

So my daughter has got an iPhone for her 13th birthday. Never had an iPhone before or any Apple products.

When I go to create her an Apple ID using her Gmail address it says "This email address is not available. Choose a different address."

Ok, so tried the "Recover Your Apple ID" option, but no idea what number it's tied to, not hers anyway. It says "?(•••) •••-••71", but unsure if this is a generic number as an example, but appears to be in US mode looking for 001 (phone settings is UK for location)

What can we do? Would rather avoid creating her a second Gmail account.

G

Hi scz4,

This might or might not be a solution, depending on where you live.

If you exhaust all avenues at home, you can go to your nearest Apple Store and they will walk you through the process.

The journey distance time etc might be worth it compared to the time taken, hassle and stress at home.

They recovered a lost Apple ID password for me, so I know they can go the extra mile at times.

Wishing you all the best.

[lyricalgangster]

I considered the above, and was told the Apple stores would just walk you through the online help process - ie they have no access to your data/password/Apple ID.

Basically, unless you can get the phone number it was linked to, there is nothing they can do...

Took hours to get mine sorted, and like I say, eventually just involved total factory reset and new apple id. Lost loads of photos (not linked to cloud).

[RGG]

lyricalgangster said:

I considered the above, and was told the Apple stores would just walk you through the online help process - ie they have no access to your data/password/Apple ID.

Basically, unless you can get the phone number it was linked to, there is nothing they can do...

Took hours to get mine sorted, and like I say, eventually just involved total factory reset and new apple id. Lost loads of photos (not linked to cloud).

Just saying my Apple Genius went above and beyond the call of duty and unlocked my Apple ID'ed iPhone and let me put a new Apple ID password in. Not the iPhone unlock password, the Apple ID password.

I have to say, I was so surprised and grateful.

[RGG]

RGG said:

lyricalgangster said:

I considered the above, and was told the Apple stores would just walk you through the online help process - ie they have no access to your data/password/Apple ID.

Basically, unless you can get the phone number it was linked to, there is nothing they can do...

Took hours to get mine sorted, and like I say, eventually just involved total factory reset and new apple id. Lost loads of photos (not linked to cloud).

Just saying my Apple Genius went above and beyond the call of duty and unlocked my Apple ID'ed iPhone and let me put a new Apple ID password in. Not the iPhone unlock password, the Apple ID password.

I have to say, I was so surprised and grateful.

He took the iPhone around the back and the tech guys did it.

[CheesecakeRunner]

LunarOne said:

It probably wants you to create an icloud email address - something like [e-mail]

Apple IDs can use any email address.

[CheesecakeRunner]

scz4 said:

When I go to create her an Apple ID using her Gmail address it says "This email address is not available. Choose a different address."

Ok, so tried the "Recover Your Apple ID" option, but no idea what number it's tied to, not hers anyway. It says "?(•••) •••-••71", but unsure if this is a generic number as an example, but appears to be in US mode looking for 001 (phone settings is UK for location)

It could be that either you, or someone else, is not using the Gmail address they think they own.

Gmail ignores full stops in email addresses.

For examples, I own “[e-mail]” (not really, but you know what I mean). I always format it as [e-mail], and that’s what my Apple ID is set to.

But at least one chap in the US, and a farmer in Staffordshire, both think their email is “[e-mail]”. Without the full stop. It isn’t. The farmer in Staffordshire probably signed up with a .co.uk address, and the US guy is just and idiot from what I can gather by the emails he gets.

Anyway, this means that whenever they try and do a password reset for something, I get the emails. And I can do a password reset if they set up an account someone with what they think it their email address.

So, you could attempt to do a password reset of the Gmail account first to are sure you have control of it, and then of the AppleID without using the phone number, and choose the email reset option. Try formatting your email with and without full stops, and use the website, not the phone https://iforgot.apple.com/uk/password/verify/apple...

One further thing…. You should be setting up your daughters phone with an Apple ID in her name and email address, as a child, and adding it to your account in the Family settings. Otherwise you’re not going to be able to use parental controls on it.

[anonymous-user]

My children insist on iPhones (I don't think you can be seen with anything else at school as otherwise people will think you live in poverty), guess who is IT support when they forget their password or PIN number?

I fkING HATE APPLE! (and breathe)

And relax. So a word of warning, if they ever forget their PIN number and retry the same one 10 times and lock the phone for a year your only option is to reset the phone using iCloud. Warning, after installing iCloud and connecting the phone there is a 50/50 chance of an "unexpected error occurred" error and you never being able to connect.

So you manage to connect and reset the phone, all well and good, but when you turn the phone back on you have to enter your iCloud account password, if you do not know it then you are screwed. No problem thought I, I will just reset it.

So you go on the Apple website and they will send a message to the phone number registered to that account, if you don't have that number anymore then the phone is bricked and there is nothing you can do.

If you do have the number then you can request the password is reset. How long do you think this takes, a few minutes, a day?

No, they will send you a link to reset it in two weeks!!!

It was an old iPhone 6S I was going to sell on eBay, in the end I gave up and put a hammer through it.

[audi321]

Could you use the gmail trick of adding a fullstop into the original email address, or a '+' at the end, to create the Apple ID? Obviously gmail will ignore the fullstop or + and send the emails to the normal gmail address?