As of September 2023 is it or is it not possible to change your primary Paypal address?

[MartinJ2]

The email address registered as my primary Paypal address will shortly become defunct. When I log in with my primary address and try to change it I'm told this is not possible. Various Paypal online documents contradict this but it appears that these are out of date.

Do I really have to cancel my existing account and all its associated test data and start again?

[kernowlass · Accepted solution]

@MartinJ2 

Go and click on the profile tab (icon next to log out) > click on the + and add another/new email address first > verify it > go back and click on update and tick the box underneath that says make primary > then you should get the remove option by the old now no longer primary email. You can remove that one or leave it on as you can have up to 8 email addresses on the one paypal account.

[MartinJ2]

Many thanks for picking this up, @kernowlass.

We've obviously been reading the same documentation. I'd previously picked up the advice about creating a secondary user and had gone through the procedure - creating a user/validating/setting profile and received a tick here. But the tick-receipt procedure then redirected me to my prime account where, I now realise, the entry to the "additional user" entry on my "manage users" page (which had previously displayed a "pending" status) now shows a read "action required" status.

There's no indication here of what action might be required and no indication during the verification procedure that anything was amiss. There's no sign of your "make primary" box either, though this might not be surprising if the account hasn't been properly registered.

So, I'm encouraged by your belief that there's a possible route that might enable me to change my primary email, but apparently snarled up on some unstated validation check.

Do you have any suggestions as regards what might be wrong or how I might investigate this subsidiary issue further? Just now it looks as if there's something on my account that simply prevents me from creating additional users.

Best wishes, MJ

[MartinJ2]

Update - looking further into the "profile" for my new user I can now see that it wants to perform an "identity check". Looks like that's the initial problem at least. Will update this topic once I've cleared the problem.  MJ

[MartinJ2]

OK - after a huge struggle I managed to get a secondary user registered. Now to substitute this for my primary.

"go back and click on update and tick the box underneath that says make primary"

I interpret this as "go to profile settings/Login and security, where it says "Email Address" and offers an "Update" button.  A new popup now opens with an Edit button. I click this and it says "We're sorry. You can't change your primary email address". There is no "remove" option.

Where am I going wrong?

MJ

[kernowlass]

@MartinJ2 

You did not mention adding 'users' to your account in your original post.

All you asked was how to update your old email address to your new email address.

So that is what my reply was, to change your primary email address you ADD another one first > then you mark that one primary and then remove the old one. 

[MartinJ2]

Fret not Kernowlass.  We've finally arrived.

My problem was that the profile_settings/email_address/update window introduces the "add email address" feature as a cryptic + symbol without benefit of either label or tooltip. Meanwhile, the account_settings/manage_users/update window (which also introduces new email addresses) has a perfectly explicit "Add user" button. Masterly!

Many thanks for taking so much trouble over this. For the benefit of anyone else struggling with this issue, the answer to my question is YES, you can change your primary email address, and PHEW!

With best wishes, MartinJ