Can I transfer .me accounts to the cloud?

Good morning, as an old 'un I got a shock a couple of days ago when I was in my local Apple Centre - talking about the Cloud and my .me accounts (I have 4; 1 x private 2 x work and 1 x community based. I use a wonderful old (like me) MacBookPro Core Duo that cannot use Lion and I was asking the question about what happens to my 4 accounts when and if I transfer to the Cloud.

The answers dismayed me;

• First I have no option but to go to the cloud if I have mobile me accounts, that means that I have to purchase a new MBP!
• Second, I cannot continue to use my .me accounts after 30th June 2012 unless I do so via the webmail option (not good and nowhere near as flexible as MacMail).

So, fellow communards, my questions are simple;

• Will all of my 4 .me accounts be capable of being used if, or more apposite, when I get a new MBP and enter the cloud?
• How will each of these address and sync with my other devices (iPad and iPhone)?
• Will I have to use one of the accounts as the sync for contacts, calendars etc. or will I need to set up contacts and calendars for each one?

I know that someone on here will have some answers in 'layman's' English and look forward to receiving them.

Uncle H

Hello Uncle H and welcome to Mac-Help.

First off, I'm honored to meet someone with 4 MobileMe accounts! I was around back in the day when MobileMe was .Mac!

I'll do my best answer your questions as simply as I can.

To answer your first question: You can transition all 4 of your .me accounts to iCloud. Just follow these instructions here: Transitioning From MobileMe to iCloud. Unfortunately, you will only be able to use one iCloud account at a time for most iCloud services on your Mac. You might be able to use more than one iCloud account for email at a time, but I can't be certain for sure. My best guess is from having poked around in system preferences, you can't.

What I would do is use one of your iCloud accounts, once you transition from MobileMe, as your primary account that you setup on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad and use that for all your syncing needs so you're iCloud email, contacts, calendars, etc are accessible on all your iDevices. If you have contacts, calendars, etc on your other 3 accounts and you want / need them to sync across all your devices as well, I'd say add them to your primary iCloud account. Then I would just separate them so you can distinguish friends contacts from work contacts and work calendar stuff from friend calendar stuff. You can do that by creating groups inside your Mac's Address book program. Create on group for family, friends, work, etc. And you can do the same in calendars too.

Here's what I would do if I was in your position:

1. Get a new Mac with Lion installed on it.
2. Setup the new computer the way you like it.
3. Once Lion is setup, use the above link as a guide and transition all your MobileMe accounts to iCloud.
4. Now pick one of your iCloud accounts to use as your primary and enter in that information into the iCloud sections of your Mac, iPhone, iPad.
5. Make sure that all your iCloud settings / options on each of your devices are turned on.
6. Open up your Mac's Address Book, iCal, etc and create some Address Book groups and some different calendars to distinguish friends from work, etc.
7. Open up Safari and log into one of your non primary iCloud accounts and look at your address book and calendars.
8. Manually type what you see on Safari into your Mac's address book and calendars.
9. Once that's completed, log out of your iCloud account on Safari.
10. Repeat steps 7 - 9 for each of your non primary iCloud accounts. (Depending how much info you have on your non primary accounts, this can take a lot of time).
11. You should now be all set.

I know you still want to send/receive email from your other iCloud accounts. You'll probably need to stick to using the website to read and send emails from your non primary iCloud accounts.

As for your other 3 accounts, you can transition them to iCloud from .me, but you'll only be able to use one at a time.

I hope that all makes sense. There's a lot of information there. And sadly, you have to have OS X 10.7 Lion to take advantage of all iCloud services. So DO NOT transition to iCloud until you have a new computer with Lion up and running! And yes, .me will be discontinued as of June 2012. I am not sure what will happen if you don't transition to iCloud after that date.

Anyway, I hope that all helps. Please feel free to ask more questions and someone here will do their best to answer.

Cheers
Searay

This thread is very helpful. Although I have a slightly different problem.

My husband and I have been using the same MobileMe acct to sync calendars, contacts, etc. My question, can I set up my iCloud acct and transfer all the MobileMe data to my iCloud AND can he set up his owe iCloud acct to transfer all the data from our shared MobileMe acct.

I now understand that we could have, and probably should have, set up separate calendars and subscribed to each others calendars. However, we currently sync all of our devices to my single user MobileMe acct. We sync: 2 desktops, 2 laptops, 2 iPads, and 2 phones with my single user MobileMe acct.

My husband books professional conducting gigs in the mobileme calendar two to three years in advance. Losing data from our calendar in the transition is not an option. We have the calendar backed up and printed so we should be fine. My biggest concern is our ability to each set up our separate iCloud accts. and transfer the same data from our single user MobileMe acct. to our two new separate iCloud accts. Will that work, or are we in trouble??

Thanks,
Tgpeterson