How do I remove or delete an @me.com email?

I currently have 2 Apple IDs, one that uses my Gmail account and I have been using this one for a while now, this is the one I want to keep.

When iCloud came out, I registered an @me.com email for free to reserve my name. But when I did this it registered a separate Apple ID rather then attach to my other Apple ID.

This is ridiculously frustrating, all I want to do is remove or delete one of my Apple IDs or @me.com email to make it available to my original Gmail account.

How would I do this? I don't see anywhere allowing you to delete your account.

Solution 1:

You cannot move, merge, or delete an Apple ID once it is created. Once it is created, it is a permanent account.

More info available here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HE37?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Solution 2:

Currently, there is no provision to merge accounts which would allow you to combine everything and get rid of the unwanted account cleanly. I've not heard of a process to delete one other than letting it sit unused until the next time the service prunes unused accounts. That would at least let you walk away from everything related to the old account and perhaps enable it to be pruned / reused sooner rather than later.

In the past, unused accounts have not been deleted and freed, but with the move to iCloud some older accounts could get deleted and freed up but only Apple knows if this is planned since nothing has been spoken publicly about this.

What you can do is change all personal information on the account you wish to leave behind and set the password to something written down in a safe location and wait for it to expire.

You can change your Apple ID on all accounts that are not ended with @mac.com @icloud.com or @me.com which is a welcome change to the past when you couldn't even do that. As it's not perfectly clear what your end goal is, why not reach out to Apple's billing and account support and discuss your particular needs with an actual employee trained in how the system works to see if they have a better answer for you.