Reason : If you lose/forget/corrupt your Apple ID password and don’t have another iThing with the same Apple ID to hand or a web browser that has it saved for use with iCloud.com, the process to reset Apple ID passwords uses the email address you’ve used for your Apple ID to send you a recover/reset link.
If no longer have access to that email account, things are going to get complicated…
Anyone that uses an email address from a defunct ISP or is hanging onto an old Wanadoo/Hotmail email address might want to consider moving their Apple ID to a Gmail or iCloud email account.
This also applies (with knobs on) if you own a domain name that you also use for email - never use that domain email as the admin email for the domain registration, or an ISP email address but use a generic email such as Google Hotmail or Apple etc.
Otherwise, if your web site hosting is offline for any reason when domain registration time comes around, the reminders will go to an email address that you can’t access, and you may then lose the domain,
I know this from bitter experience - I forgot that I had used an ISP email address to register my domain, then I changed ISPs so that email became defunct, and I was not able to change my contact details for the domain registration because confirmation emails were going to the email address I no longer had!
Some weeks back I posted this to my “struggling to set up ipad” thread. may be of help to someone in the future. It was ChatGPT that sorted it for me.
"Thanks to everyone who posted back in January - finally got round to sorting this out. In case anyone should be foolish enough to adopt my approach - deciding to take my i-pad on holiday and set it up while I’m away - these are the things I’ve learnt.
Firstly, it’s MUCH better to set up an i-pad at home alongside one’s own PC or laptop. So that one can interrogate said PC/laptop at the same time as playing around with the i-pad. I finished up using ChatGPT to help me.
It does help to remember deep in the mists of time that I had opened up an i-tunes account (so I am not a “new” account holder - somewhere, out there I am already registered with Apple)
It also helps to remember that said i-tunes account was set up with a now obsolete email address (so any message from Apple disappears into thin air)
Furthermore, it helps to pay attention when (years ago) you got a message saying your password had been hacked and you need to change it. That has been the crux of the problem as Apple had locked my account for security reasons.
Chat GPT usefully told me I could use my obsolete email address to start my communication with Apple who then offered to send me a message to my email (no good) or I could answer security questions. It was a leap of faith on my part to opt for the latter as I had no idea whatsoever what security questions I would have chosen and what the answers would be. I was lucky - first one was my birth date, second one was “special location” - I took a punt and my account was unlocked.
And at that point I could now change my email address to a current one and my password, ditto."
