How to delete your Apple ID permanently

By Otabek Mamadaliev · Sources last reviewed 18 August 2026 · What this means

Everything you have ever bought from Apple goes with it. Apps, films, music, books — all licences tied to the Apple ID, not to you. For an account a decade old this can be an enormous amount of money, and there is no transfer to another Apple ID.

Deactivate instead — Apple offers a genuine middle option

Apple can temporarily deactivate your account rather than delete it. Your account and data stay intact; you simply cannot sign in or use them. It is the right choice if you want to step away without destroying a decade of purchases.

Request it from the same Data and Privacy page, via Request to deactivate your account. Availability varies by country and region.

You are given a unique alphanumeric access code, and you must keep it. It is the only way to reactivate the account. Lose it and a temporary pause becomes permanent.

While deactivated you receive no iCloud Mail or iMessage, DRM-protected purchases such as apps, films and TV shows may stop working or updating, and subscriptions are cancelled at the end of the current billing cycle.

Before you request deletion

1. Download your data from privacy.apple.com — photos, contacts, notes, everything in iCloud. Apple's self-service tools cover 240+ countries and also let you transfer a copy directly to another service, including iCloud Photos and Apple Music playlists, which is easier than downloading and re-uploading.
2. Sign out on every device first, and turn off Find My. This is the one that bites hardest: afterwards you cannot sign out of iCloud or turn off Find My Activation Lock, and Apple warns you might not be able to use the device at all. Do this before anything else.
3. Deregister iMessage, or texts from iPhone users can silently fail to reach you after you switch phones.
4. Cancel subscriptions billed through Apple — they do not all stop automatically.
5. Spend your Apple account balance — it is not refunded.
6. Cancel AppleCare One — an active plan blocks the request outright.
7. Pay off any Apple Pay Later instalments — an outstanding loan also blocks it.

Request deletion

1. Go to privacy.apple.com and sign in.
2. Choose to delete your account.
3. Select a reason and read the consequences screen properly.
4. Note the access code Apple gives you — it is how you contact them about the request.
5. Confirm.

Apple verifies you are the account holder before acting on the request. As with deactivation, guard the access code you are given — it is the handle for any contact with Apple about the request.

Activation Lock is the mistake that bricks hardware

Sign out of iCloud and turn off Find My on every device before the Apple ID goes, not after. Activation Lock ties a device to the Apple ID that set it up. Delete the ID while a device is still locked to it and there is no credential left that can unlock it — the phone, iPad, Mac or Watch can become unusable, and Apple's own warning says as much.

Work through everything, including hardware you no longer use daily:

• iPhone and iPad — Settings, your name, Sign Out.
• Mac — System Settings, your name, Sign Out.
• Apple Watch — unpair it from the phone, which removes its lock.
• Old devices in a drawer, and anything you have given away or sold and not properly wiped. These are the ones people forget, and the new owner is the one who suffers.

If a device is already lost or sold and you cannot sign out on it, remove it from the device list in your account settings first. Doing that while the Apple ID still exists is straightforward; doing it afterwards is not possible at all.

iMessage keeps your number even after you leave

This one costs you messages rather than money, and it is entirely avoidable. If your number is registered to iMessage and you move to an Android phone without deregistering, texts from iPhone users keep being routed to iMessage — where they now arrive nowhere. The sender sees a delivered message; you never receive it.

Deregister before you delete the Apple ID, either from the iPhone itself under Messages, or through Apple's deregistration page for the number. Once the ID is gone you have lost the easy route to fix it.

Purchases, and the thing worth doing instead

Apps, films, music and books are licences on the Apple ID. There is no transfer to another Apple ID, no consolidation, and no refund — so a decade-old account can represent a very large sum that deletion simply writes off.

Deactivation exists precisely for this. If the goal is to stop using Apple services rather than to have Apple erase you, deactivating keeps the purchases intact and is reversible with the access code. Guard that code somewhere that is not an Apple device — a code stored only in iCloud Keychain on a signed-out phone is a code you cannot reach.