I just realized that my daughter has my iTunes account password because I got a receipt for about $25 worth of purchases that I’m sure I didn’t make. I don’t even like Eminem, Lil Wayne and don’t even know who Wisin & Yandel are… ?
I’m dealing with my daughter, but it seems reasonable to also change my iTunes Store password. Except I have absolutely no idea how to do that. Help! How do I change my iTunes account password?
I won’t get involved in your parenting situation other than to note that my kids find it a great sport to try and guess my password and since their Mom and I tended to use the same basic approach to password mnemonics, once they broke hers they had a good handle on mine too. So I had to change my iTunes Store password too. ‘nuf said about that! 🙂
You’re right, though, that it’s surprisingly non-obvious how to change the password, whether you still think of it as the iTunes Music Store (ahh, the good old days) or by its more modern name as the iTunes Store. The trick is that you need to log in to your account while within iTunes to change the password.
So to get started, you’ll need to fire up iTunes (and if you don’t have the latest version, do download it first).
Click on “iTunes Store” on the left side, then on the top right of the ITunes window you’ll see your account email address tucked neatly away. Click on it:
You’ll want to choose the “Account” option, as I show here.
It’ll ask for your account password. If you forget, just ask your daughter to type it in at this point.
Kidding. 🙂
Once you’re logged in, it shows you the address on file, your selected payment method, and a variety of other interesting information:
I have, of course, blurred out my home address. Also note how many machines are authorized to play content purchased with this account. The max number is five, so you can see that I’m already 3/5 loaded up. Once I get to 5 machines authorized then I’ll have to rethink my server / backup / music player strategy.
To change your ITunest Store account password, click on “Edit” next to your Apple ID…
I’d encourage you to come up with a different approach to your password at this point in time. One thing that’s an easy password mnemonic is to think of a sentence like “This is my personal iTunes account, darn it!” and take the first letter of each word + punctuation to turn it into an impossible-to-guess but easy-to-remember password. In this instance, it’d convert into Timpiadi! Not bad. Add a digit or two for even more security and you’re off to the races solo.
While you’re here, also check out the options lower on the Edit ITunes Store Account page:
I have a personal aversion to marketing email 🙂 so I clicked on “Unsubscribe” while I was here too.
Done? Click on “Done” and you’re good to go. Now, don’t be surprised if your iPod, iPhone, AppleTV and even computer prompt you for the new password next time you try to watch a movie, play some music or even just check for updated apps.
My two oldest each have their own iPod Touch. They were content with free downloads for a while (which they had to ask me permission to download, since they didn’t know my password), but eventually wanted to buy apps. Again, they would give me the money (usually 99 cents plus tax) and I’d sign in and download it for them.
Over the holidays, they were given iTunes gift cards, so we decided that it was time that they got their own iTunes accounts (a bit of a hassle, since my daughter was 11 at the time, and Apple didn’t like that).
So, they can now download pretty much what they want, when they want, as long as there is still money in their account from the gift cards.
That said, the e-mail addresses associated with the accounts are under my control, so I see whenever they buy something. Fortunately, they are not at the point where they want to hide things they buy, and haven’t done anything to change the account settings to a different e-mail address, or change their password. (We’ll deal with that when the day eventually arrives.)