How to switch Apple IDs on your iPhone or iPad

Your Apple ID is what connects you to all of the content in the Apple ecosystem — your Apple Music, your apps, your audio books, your podcast subscriptions, and everything you store and back up in iCloud. There are, on some occasions, reasons why you might want to sign out of one Apple ID and into another. Whatever your reason, I'm hear to help.

This guide is for switching the Apple ID signed into your iPhone or iPad. If you want to actually change your Apple ID, you should check out our guide to managing your Apple ID.

How to change and manage your Apple ID

If you'd like to switch the Apple ID being used on your iPhone or iPad, read on!

What happens to the content when you switch Apple IDs
Step 1: Sign out of your current Apple ID
Step 2: Sign in with a different Apple ID

What happens to the content when you switch Apple IDs

Depending on whether you keep content on your iPhone or iPad or erase it, some of your data will stay on your iPhone, even after you switch. For example, contacts, photos, and calendar events that are on your iPhone (and not only in iCloud) will remain. Apps, music, books, and podcast subscriptions will also remain on your iPhone, but updating them will be a problem if you're signed into a different iTunes or App Store account than the one you purchased them on.

When signing in to a different Apple ID, you'll be able to merge content on your iPhone with the iCloud data associated with the other Apple ID. So, if you signed out of a work Apple ID and want to keep your work contacts on the iPhone, save them to your iPhone and then merge them when you sign in to your personal Apple ID.

Step 1: Sign out of your current Apple ID

Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap your Apple ID banner at the top of the screen.
Scroll to the bottom and tap Sign Out.
Tap Sign out of iCloud if you have different accounts for iCloud and the iTunes and App Stores. Otherwise, proceed to Step 5.
Enter the password associated with your Apple ID.
Tap Turn Off.
Turn on the category for any data you want to save on your iPhone. Remember, when you switch accounts, the data on your iPhone will merge with the new Apple ID data.
Tap Sign Out.
Tap Sign out again to confirm that you want to sign out.

Step 2: Sign in with a different Apple ID

Now you can sign in to your iPhone or iPad with a different Apple ID.

Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap **Sign in to your iPhone (or iPad).
Tap Email and enter the email address associated with the different Apple ID.
Enter the Password associated with the different Apple ID.
Tap Merge if you want to merge the data on your iPhone with the iCloud account associated with the different Apple ID. Tap Don't Merge if you don't want the content on the iPhone uploaded to iCloud in the different Apple ID's account.