I’ve started using my old iPhone 4 again to play Spotify and podcasts in my car. Just one problem: iCloud kept asking for the password for my old Apple ID. It was driving me crazy until I found the solution.

I logged into My Apple ID and changed my Apple ID and primary email address to the old email address. I was worried that it would send a verification email to the old address, which no longer exists, but I needn’t have worried. I just had to click on the link sent to my current email address to activate the change.

Next, I went into settings on the iPhone 4, selected iCloud and logged in under the old ID to delete the ID from the phone’s iCloud settings. You can choose to save bookmarks etc but I didn’t need to as I was only going to use the phone as a music player. (Before I did all this I logged out of Messages and FaceTime but I’m not sure if this was necessary.)

After making sure that I was no longer getting any prompts under the old ID, I logged back into My Apple ID to change the ID and primary email address back to the current one.

Another problem solved!

PS: I activated Apple’s second factor authentication last week. It was reassuring to get a prompt to enter an SMS verification code before I could change my Apple ID and email address.