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Itunes Library access

Created an Itunes account under an old work-email address. Purchased hundreds of songs and added thousands of songs to my library from CD's.


Even though I have maintained the same Apple ID, I obviously mis-managed the account when I changed email addresses.


Is there any way to access those songs that are tied to this old email address?

Posted on Sep 5, 2019 2:33 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 6, 2019 6:37 AM

Hard to say, really.


The only way to access purchases from an Apple ID / iTunes account is to know its password.


As I said, the existence or functionality of the associated email address does not affect the functionality of the Apple ID it is associated with. The actual account and all its purchases should still be around and accessible if you know its password. The password, should be whatever it used to be when you were using it unless you actually changed it.


If you cannot recover access to the account by the normal means: If you forgot your Apple ID password - Apple Support

Then you would need to contact iTunes Account security and see if they can help you regain access to it: iTunes Store - Contact Us - Official Apple Support


Anything you ripped from CDs will not be available however, as that is not tied to the account. If you don't have access to the old library, then you will need to rip them again.

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 6, 2019 6:37 AM in response to SteveA7150

Hard to say, really.


The only way to access purchases from an Apple ID / iTunes account is to know its password.


As I said, the existence or functionality of the associated email address does not affect the functionality of the Apple ID it is associated with. The actual account and all its purchases should still be around and accessible if you know its password. The password, should be whatever it used to be when you were using it unless you actually changed it.


If you cannot recover access to the account by the normal means: If you forgot your Apple ID password - Apple Support

Then you would need to contact iTunes Account security and see if they can help you regain access to it: iTunes Store - Contact Us - Official Apple Support


Anything you ripped from CDs will not be available however, as that is not tied to the account. If you don't have access to the old library, then you will need to rip them again.

Sep 5, 2019 2:50 PM in response to SteveA7150

Did you create a new Apple ID / iTunes Account, or did you update the email address on the original account?


The existence or cancellation of the associated email address has no bearing on the Apple ID / iTunes account. It will continue to work even if the email address is defunct.


If you know the password for it, it can still be accessed and its purchased content simply by signing in to it.


Ripped CDs would not be attached to the account in any way however, and unless you have access to the computer you ripped them onto, you would need to rip them again.





Sep 5, 2019 3:17 PM in response to Phil0124

Phil0124,


Thx.


I genuinely don't believe that I changed my apple ID or iTunes account. I created the original itunes account in approx 2005 and started buying songs and ripping CD's into my itunes library. I used that library to download and sync to an ipod.


When I purchased an iphone for the first time in 2012, I was not able to download all the songs in my library to that device because it did not have enough memory. So I wanted to select certain songs but was unable to do so because itunes asked me for a password. And my current password did not work. I tried various options of passwords I might have used in the past, but was not successful. The issue was that when I tried to update the password it was going to send the response to the old email address, which no longer exists.


Kind of a vicious circle............and may be entirely a result of something that I did wrong. I accessed my library on itunes website today (first time in many years) and those old songs are not visible/available.


What I am trying to learn is whether I can access those songs connected to that old email address.

Itunes Library access

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