deauthorize old mac from itunes

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
how do i deauthorize mac i no longer have. i sold 2 old macs in past and now i have maxed out 5 authjorized computers on i tunes. so i need to deauthorize macs i no longer own. any suggestions?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gdog View Post


    how do i deauthorize mac i no longer have. i sold 2 old macs in past and now i have maxed out 5 authjorized computers on i tunes. so i need to deauthorize macs i no longer own. any suggestions?



    There is a menu option (I think under the Store menu) which allows you to zap the authorization on ALL of your computers and reset the limit back to zero. You can use this once per six months, last time I checked. You will have to re-authorize those computers you still have. Also keep an eye out for Audible content. That will be an additional hoop to jump through, and you'll have to go directly to audible, I think, to get that fixed.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    gdoggdog Posts: 224member
    thanks. sounds good but i am unclear regarding audible content, what does that mean or do?
  • Reply 3 of 8
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gdog View Post


    thanks. sounds good but i am unclear regarding audible content, what does that mean or do?



    If you neither have an Audible.com account, nor content from Audible.com, then you have no need to worry about this. If you do have Audible content, then you'll have to find some way to get the old computers de-authorized, or you may not be able to use your content on your new computer.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    gdoggdog Posts: 224member
    thanks for help
  • Reply 5 of 8
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Yes, there is a "TOTAL DEAUTHORIZE" ability somewhere in your iTunes Account settings. As mentioned above, this can only be done once or twice a year. I tried it once, it's good, got my 5 computer authorisations back, and now I've learnt my lesson.... Deauthorize before reinstall or selling computer...!!
  • Reply 6 of 8
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sunilraman View Post


    Yes, there is a "TOTAL DEAUTHORIZE" ability somewhere in your iTunes Account settings. As mentioned above, this can only be done once or twice a year. I tried it once, it's good, got my 5 computer authorisations back, and now I've learnt my lesson.... Deauthorize before reinstall or selling computer...!!



    <nod> this gave me a big headache when I had a windows box. I ended up having to reinstall windows every few months due to stability and clutter issues, and iTunes always thought it was a new machine. I non-arbitrairily choose to blame Microsoft for this, as I've seen the same thing happen in other programs as well, where it can no longer tell that I'm on the same computer.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Celemourn View Post


    <nod> this gave me a big headache when I had a windows box. I ended up having to reinstall windows every few months due to stability and clutter issues, and iTunes always thought it was a new machine. I non-arbitrairily choose to blame Microsoft for this, as I've seen the same thing happen in other programs as well, where it can no longer tell that I'm on the same computer.



    Hah! Exactly my problem too. My obsession with reinstalling WinXP2 (about two to three times a month) on my AMD64 got me into problemas. Usually it was because I "fried" the registry (software not any hardware) playing around with overclocking settings like RAM latencies and such.



    I think though even with MacOSX each fresh install will see it as a "new" computer when you Authorize it...



    But yeah, Windows clutter and stability and drivers and hacks and tweakware and what not. I am very happy (oh MacBook, come home soon from your LCD replacement, papa's got a bad hankering for some Mac'ering when you're back... awww yeaaahhhh) that I can go virtual machine on Windows' ass with Parallels on Mac. I got clean images I can just whack back into Parallels if anything goes awry. An INFINITELY better solution than the alleged "Uninstall" Control Panel thingy in Windows.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    I just installed a new hard drive and updated to Windows 7. I didn't deauthorize that computer...in fact, I haven't bothered doing that at all and now I'm at 4/5. It's nice that they have that total zap thing because this is kind of a dumb feature. Couldn't they just let me access my iTunes account online and pick which computers I want to remove? I mean...it's all supposed to be ME, so why can't I have control over it? Instead of this "only once every 6 months" limitation.



    Still, this isn't nearly as annoying as how you can't turn off the album flow in an iPod Touch / iPhone so when I put my iPod in my pocket then pull it back out to change the song I don't have to tip it over and wait for the accelerometer to realize I don't want to be in album flow mode since it's completely useless...



    Apple make some pretty annoying design choices. I guess that's the price of using apple stuff...it's nice but...god help you if you don't like it the way they set it up.
Sign In or Register to comment.