In this quick tutorial, we’ll share three ways to find out when you signed up for your Apple Account (previously called Apple ID) on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or another device.
Knowing the creation date of your Apple Account isn’t very useful aside from helping you trace when you began your Apple journey.
Even if you forget your account email, password, or device passcode, Apple won’t ask you when you created your account, as it has other ways to verify ownership, such as biometrics, your email address, phone number, recovery contact, and more.
Still, for the sake of information, if you’d like to know when you created your Apple ID, here are three ways to do that.
Get this information directly from Apple
You can request Apple for your Apple ID information and see the exact time, date, month, and year when you created your account. This is the best method and also works if you simply created a free Apple Account in a web browser or on a non-Apple device to use Apple Music and Apple TV.
1) Visit privacy.apple.com and sign in with your Apple Account details.
2) Click ‘Request a copy of your data,’ check the box for ‘Apple Account and device information,’ and complete the request.
3) Now wait for 4 to 7 days to hear from Apple.
4) Once your data is available for download, Apple will notify you at your Apple ID email address. Click ‘Get your data’ in the email and then hit the little download icon next to ‘Apple Account and device information.’
5) After the ZIP file is downloaded, unzip it, and then open the ‘Apple ID Account Information.csv’ file.
6) Check the bottom-most row of the ‘Create Date’ column to know the exact date and time you signed up for your Apple Account.
Check your purchase history
This method and the next one may not give you the exact date, but it should be very close.
Basically, you’ll be checking the date you first purchased a free or paid application, movie, song, ringtone, or book from Apple’s online stores. Now, if an iPhone or iPad was your very first Apple device, chances are you set it up by creating a new Apple Account, and soon after downloaded an app like WhatsApp, Instagram, Google Maps, YouTube, or X on it. In this case, the date you see should be your Apple Account creation date.
However, if, like me, Mac was your first Apple device, chances are you set it up with an Apple Account and then just downloaded apps, such as Chrome, Firefox, Word, and more, directly from their official websites. In this situation, the date you see in your purchase history may be the first time you downloaded an app from the Mac App Store (which launched in January 2011) or a book or media from the iTunes Store.
- Access your Purchase History from iPhone or iPad Settings > Apple Account name > Media & Purchases > View Account > Purchase History.
- Tap ‘Last 90 Days, Paid’ at the top.
- Tap Date Range > Custom, and select the oldest year and month you see here.
- Then, set Cost to Free and Type to all categories, to see the date, month, and year you first got something from Apple’s App Store, iTunes Store, or Books Store.
See when you first downloaded an app from the App Store
Simply open App Store on your iPhone or iPad, tap your profile picture, followed by Apps > My Apps, and scroll to the bottom of the All tab to see the date when you first downloaded an iOS app. This should give you an estimated idea of when you first created your Apple Account.
What’s your reason for knowing when you created your Apple Account?
Also, check out: How and why to add Legacy Contact to your Apple Account