Lost old account in transfer to new iPad. (Invalid acct) old iPad had 2 accounts on it.

Transferring backup to new gen 11 iPad on MIL iPad, we were in a password reset loop that did not allow us to sign in old or new acct on old or new iPad. We lost the old apple app account (invalid acct now). The old iPad had 2 apple app accts signed in. Not sure when that happened, new phones and new iCloud accts. Old account was old email address, not iCloud.com like the newer acct. All the game apps and progress did not transfer, if new iPad cannot have 2 accounts on it she would like to restore old account on old iPad to preserve her games progress or lose the new acct and restore old acct. I was on with apple support for over an hour and thought we were squared away, but the games never loaded on new iPad. That is when I figured out why there were 2 accts on old iPad. Multiple people help her with her devices, so I am not privy to last setup info. I Tried Iforgot.apple.com and applied. Thanks

Posted on Oct 5, 2026 6:29 AM

1 reply

Lawrence Finch

Level 10 (244,490 points)

Oct 5, 2026 6:54 AM in response to GoldenGirl99

It is not possible to be signed in to 2 Apple accounts on an iPad; at any given time there can be only one Apple account on an iOS device. You may have apps that were installed using 2 different accounts if you logged out of one account and logged in with another; this would not have removed the apps left behind from the previous account, but they could never be updated.

If the device is activation locked you must log in with the account that was open when activation lock was enabled. If activation lock was NOT enabled (that is, if Find My was not enabled) then you can reset the device to factory settings, then set up the device as new: Restore your iOS device to factory settings - Apple Support