I was a child when @mac.com emails came out but i think apple should have left them! They have a certain appeal and sound oh so fancy! Missed marketing opportunity there!
A friend of mine thought it was really cool that I had @mac.com. A week or so after he found out about it he was at my house complaining that Apple wouldn’t give him one. I had to explain to him that you had to be on a Mac to get one and his Dell wouldn’t cut it. He was PISSED. To this day he refuses to get an iPhone or iPad because Apple denied him an @mac.com address. His wife has an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch and he always has a different Android phone (no lie, they break on him so he gets a different one), some Transformer tablet and a Fitbit watch (another thing he always has a new one of because they break).
He needs to get an iPhone and a Mac, apple wont give him that email but he’ll get to know what real quality and stability is!
It’s just stupid to force users to change. It’s also mean spirited.
But the Apple Email “@“ Problems isn’t as foolishly stubborn as the Apple ID problems.
Here’s a problem I’ve been trying to straighten out for years. Apple wont help me with:
Early on in the year 2000(?) when we the @mac.com email addresses became available, I created an Apple ID which also became the email address at the time, I subsequently regretted that Address and created another Apple ID @mac.com which is my current primary email.
I did the following: 1. For some stupid reason I deleted the ability to receive emails using the first Apple ID 2. Made all my iTunes purchases and Music Match under the first Apple ID 3. To simplify things, this continued with all my iOS app & video purchases, etc.
Apple will not permit me to turn that First Apple IDs’s email address back on.
Further there does not seem to be a way to transfer my iTunes, TV Shows, Videos, Mac Apps, iOS Apps to my primary Apple ID / email.
Any thoughts?
I had no idea it was possible to kill the mac.com email address, so thank you for this cautionary tale.
I gather you still have access to the original account with all your purchases. I’ll second what people said above about using family sharing, and also about acceptance. My wife and I have a total of four old mac/me/icloud addresses — three of them are used as Apple IDs for constellations of related devices (her computer, phone, iPad; my computer, phone, iPad; a third computer, tv), the fourth is a joint address for email that we both want to see. One of the Apple IDs (the tv one) is used for most of our subscriptions and media purchases, but the account used to control family sharing (and parental controls) is my personal Apple ID, so the Apple Music and News+ subscriptions go through that. This arrangement works fine for us.
If you haven’t already, to make family sharing work correctly, use the original ID to set up a device (I think a computer would be best, but probably anything would do), and then have it be part of your family. I think Apple conceives of the Apple IDs as tied to devices — if that original ID isn’t tied to a device, then it might not work properly.
But yeah, I tried merging two of my IDs years ago, failing to do so. Not happening.
I am not ideologically absolutely wedded to Mac.com email. However, it is used by me in a host of site as user names including iTunes and iCloud. Since Apple is unable to merge accounts for same person for iTunes (some licensing small print legal issue) dropping the @mac.com email name is really a pain.
Note some of my online accounts financial, news, magazine, ebooks, healthcare, medicine, Medicare, etc., really don’t change account name that used @mac.com. So my dropping it is a super pain in the a@@.
While merely dropping the name @mac.com in documentation et al is irrelevant to me, i would find loss of the email address/server really really bad news.
You’re never taking it from me Apple!!! Mwaaaahaaaaaahaaaaa!!
I’ve had my since - well forever as well. It’s my personal private only email address. I enjoy it and the occasional comment from those that have or know about it. It’s the old timers club for Apple people.
I can’t see Apple turning it off due to the mass of issues it would cause. They may be hoping that people will stop using it. Or that they can move enough people off to put a plan of rewriting headers to @icloud.com as they leave and leaving @mac as an alias. But for all the bad blood and support calls it would raise. I really hope they would see it is not worth it.
I have a Mac.com address registered on the day Jobs announced iTools. It is my Apple ID and iCloud login. However, I am unable to use it as an email address since any email sent to my Mac.com address is bounced back as not found. Shouldn't the emails end-up in my iCloud in-box? Where or how do I change this behavior?
I have a Mac.com address registered on the day Jobs announced iTools. It is my Apple ID and iCloud login. However, I am unable to use it as an email address since any email sent to my Mac.com address is bounced back as not found. Shouldn't the emails end-up in my iCloud in-box? Where or how do I change this behavior?
Never had those problems with my Mac.com address. I use it daily.
I have an alias email that I have been using that is a @Mac.com email address. Starting last Thursday June 17th, I can still receive but no longer able to send using that address from IOS or OS X devices. They get rejected by the iCloud SMTP server for bad address, and you cannot change the iCloud SMTP settings.
Yet, sending from the Apple Mail in the iCloud Web Browser or via Gmail using their SMTP servers works fine though. Just not on IOS or OS X devices?
The alias is still listed in my iCloud account, so I think the alias is valid, just getting blocked on certain Apple SMTP servers.
Have a ticket with Apple engineering to see how they can fix it, cause the world knows me by that alias address and I need it!
Anyone else have similar issues with @Mac.com alias not being able to send suddenly?
I have found that my @mac.com address has also stopped working for sending mail. It is my primary login address for iCloud account, but only can send mail from an alias.
Sadly, anyone sending mail to my @mac.com address gets a rejected mail bounce saying 'user does not exist' <************@*******>: user does not exist (in reply to RCPT TO command)
Not nice... my address is out there... and is now dead, yet it is still my mail iCloud login...
Although just about every month I get emails meant for somebody else from a range of businesses. The twits keep giving out my icloud.com email by mistake/stupidity!
I have one guy that keeps giving out my email to sign up for crap... but even some important things like a doctor's office and utility! So I have always been suspecting that during this crazy Apple email history, so painstakingly described in the article, they screwed up and allowed some people to make aliases of someone else's actual Apple email addresses. I never had the guts to email his family (yes, I've been on family threads too) for fear of them thinking I hacked them! lol It's rare enough that I just leave it alone and hope they don't have access to MY emails! But more likely he's just a dope and gives people the wrong address. ha!
If someone inadvertently adds or drops a period, then it may to a different person (if the alternate address is registered). I occasionally receive emails meant for another person due to this issue (the period is added) ... and they often contain important financial documents. I forward them onto the intended recipient but he is NOT happy. I reached out to him to explain, but he refuses to return the favor.
In my company (using Outlook on Exchange Server), periods between the first and last name are routinely used. I think a sizable percent of people worldwide conceive of email addresses in this way. That's why they inadvertently add periods to @mac.com addresses
I believe that the problem exists with @icloud accounts as well - but I can't confirm this because I've run out of aliases to experiment. Maybe someone on this forum can try and report back.
Gmail does not have this problem. You can insert periods anywhere in your address and the email will still go to you.
If someone inadvertently adds or drops a period, then it may to a different person (if the alternate address is registered). I occasionally receive emails meant for another person due to this issue (the period is added) ... and they often contain important financial documents. I forward them onto the intended recipient but he is NOT happy. I reached out to him to explain, but he refuses to return the favor.
In my company (using Outlook on Exchange Server), periods between the first and last name are routinely used. I think a sizable percent of people worldwide conceive of email addresses in this way. That's why they inadvertently add periods to @mac.com addresses
I believe that the problem exists with @icloud accounts as well - but I can't confirm this because I've run out of aliases to experiment. Maybe someone on this forum can try and report back.
Gmail does not have this problem. You can insert periods anywhere in your address and the email will still go to you.
Gmail is afaik the only email provider that does this, all others treat a period as a regular character. It’s not a “problem” with iCloud, it’s a standard behaviour, you have to spell an email address correctly for the email to go to the right place.
Apple have surreptitiously removed my Mac.com address without my knowledge. It is still my login but I cannot set it up in email. A message sent to my Mac.com address does not even return an error message which is why it took me such a long time to pick up. I can even set up a forwarding from Hide My Email but then cannot access the forwarded email.
Apple support offered to help (at least the human on the other end of the phone did) but the first one cut off the phone call and the second one said he's get back to me (a few weeks ago now) and any attempt to follow up (I have a case number) is not even acknowledged.
Comments
I gather you still have access to the original account with all your purchases. I’ll second what people said above about using family sharing, and also about acceptance. My wife and I have a total of four old mac/me/icloud addresses — three of them are used as Apple IDs for constellations of related devices (her computer, phone, iPad; my computer, phone, iPad; a third computer, tv), the fourth is a joint address for email that we both want to see. One of the Apple IDs (the tv one) is used for most of our subscriptions and media purchases, but the account used to control family sharing (and parental controls) is my personal Apple ID, so the Apple Music and News+ subscriptions go through that. This arrangement works fine for us.
But yeah, I tried merging two of my IDs years ago, failing to do so. Not happening.
I’ve had my since - well forever as well. It’s my personal private only email address. I enjoy it and the occasional comment from those that have or know about it. It’s the old timers club for Apple people.
I do have a me.com account which I like as that’s my initials ME 😀
Yet, sending from the Apple Mail in the iCloud Web Browser or via Gmail using their SMTP servers works fine though. Just not on IOS or OS X devices?
The alias is still listed in my iCloud account, so I think the alias is valid, just getting blocked on certain Apple SMTP servers.
Have a ticket with Apple engineering to see how they can fix it, cause the world knows me by that alias address and I need it!
Anyone else have similar issues with @Mac.com alias not being able to send suddenly?
It is my primary login address for iCloud account, but only can send mail from an alias.
Sadly, anyone sending mail to my @mac.com address gets a rejected mail bounce saying 'user does not exist'
<************@*******>: user does not exist (in reply to RCPT TO command)
Not nice... my address is out there... and is now dead, yet it is still my mail iCloud login...
[email protected] is not the same as [email protected]
If someone inadvertently adds or drops a period, then it may to a different person (if the alternate address is registered). I occasionally receive emails meant for another person due to this issue (the period is added) ... and they often contain important financial documents. I forward them onto the intended recipient but he is NOT happy. I reached out to him to explain, but he refuses to return the favor.
In my company (using Outlook on Exchange Server), periods between the first and last name are routinely used. I think a sizable percent of people worldwide conceive of email addresses in this way. That's why they inadvertently add periods to @mac.com addresses
I believe that the problem exists with @icloud accounts as well - but I can't confirm this because I've run out of aliases to experiment. Maybe someone on this forum can try and report back.
Gmail does not have this problem. You can insert periods anywhere in your address and the email will still go to you.