Capture a domain in Apple School Manager
If an organisation wants to manage all Apple Accounts containing their domain name, they can use a process called domain capture to claim ownership of their domain and all associated account names. It also ensures any account using your domain is a Managed Apple Account.
WARNING: Turning on domain capture cannot be undone. Sending notifications will impact all users across the domain you capture.
Domain capture process
After the domain capture process starts, personal Apple Accounts using that domain are notified in an email and in a notification on any device signed into the account. For notifications, the device must use iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15.1, visionOS 2.0 or later.
The email and notification present two options to the user:
Choose a new primary email address to continue using their personal Apple Account.
Transfer the personal Apple Account and its data to the organisation, which then converts it into a Managed Apple Account.
This allows users to select the best option depending on how their personal Apple Account is used. For example, if the user has used it to store their personal data and to access services they use in a personal context, they can choose to keep the account as a personal Apple Account.
Otherwise, if they have created the Apple Account for work purposes using their organisational email address, they can choose to transfer it to the organisation. This allows the user to benefit from streamlined collaboration features and account-driven enrolment flows while allowing organisations to keep their data secure.
Users have 30 days to choose one of these options, otherwise the Apple Account remains a personal Apple Account and gets an automatically assigned account name. This allows the organisation to use it as a Managed Apple Account.
Note: Turning on domain capture also locks a domain if it was not previously locked. See Lock a domain.
Domain capture example
Eliza uses the personal Apple Account eliza@betterbag.com. BetterBag requires that all Apple Accounts using @betterbag.com be Managed Apple Accounts. Eliza can do one of the following:
Transfer the personal Apple Account eliza@betterbag.com to BetterBag, making it a Managed Apple Account with associated data remaining with eliza@betterbag.com.
Choose a new email address, such as eliza@icloud.com, to continue using associated data with the personal Apple Account.
If Eliza does not take any action, after 30 days the account remains a personal Apple Account and is automatically changed to eliza-betterbag.com@temporary.appleaccount.com. At this point, eliza@betterbag.com can be used to create a Managed Apple Account by BetterBag.
Capture a domain
In Apple School Manager
, sign in with a user that has the role of Administrator, Site Manager or People Manager.Select your name at the bottom of the sidebar, select Preferences
, then select Managed Apple Accounts 
.In the Domains section, then select Domain Capture next to the domain you want to capture.
WARNING: Turning on domain capture cannot be undone. Sending notifications will impact all users across the domain you capture.
Select Start Domain Capture, then review the following:
The number of Managed Apple Accounts currently used by this domain.
Verification the domain is locked.
The start of the 30-day time period.