How to Find the Apple ID Associated with Your APNs Cert

What is an APNs Cert?

It has probably been a year since you’ve seen those words so I’ll remind you. The APNs Certificate is the certificate that you created in order to enroll devices. It was created using an Apple ID that we recommended be a generic company ID versus a personal Apple ID because it has to be renewed every year.

How to know what account was used to create the certificate

We recommend searching through your emails as Apple sends 4 notifications to the email associated with the Apple ID. Apple sends notices according to this schedule: when the certificate is created, 30 days before expiration, 10 days before expiration, and a Final Notice a day before expiration. Search your email for the following subject lines:

• Apple Push Notification Service certificate created
• 30 day notification: Apple Push Notification Service certificate expiration
• 10 day notification: Apple Push Notification Service certificate expiration
• Final notice-Tomorrow: Apple Push Notification Service certificate expiration

Once you find the email you’ll notice that the body of the email contains the email associated with the Apple ID (generally this will be the same email you are logged into). You’ll use this email during step 2 of the APNs Cert creation process. Here is an example of an email.  

Multiple certs in your APNs account, verify you are renewing the right one

In all likelihood this is the only cert in your APNs account but in the off chance there are multiple you’ll want to compare the Topic with the UID. Open the APNs portal, find your cert and click the “i” that is in the circle. There you’ll see a field called UID. Compare this number with the Topic in Moki. If they match then that is the cert you want to update. Apple Push Notification Portal (APNs) Moki APNs Renewal  

Some FAQs you might be asking?

Does it really matter what Apple ID was used? – Yes, because the devices have credentials based on the certificate that was originally used Can’t I just Upload a New APNs Cert? – No. Unless the thought of reenrolling all your devices sounds appealing to you 🙂 What if I forgot the password? – Apple has a very nice Forgot Password process to help you with this. What if the person who setup the account is no longer here? – Try in every way to contact them and figure out what account they used so you don’t have to reenroll all of your devices.