What happens to the managed Apps & Books when the ABM account is deleted?Solved

Not a dumb question at all. Honestly, it’s one of those “you really want to know this before clicking anything” situations. 

Short version: deleting Abm is basically a point of no return for Apps and books. Every VPP license tied to that account just… disappears. Assigned, unassigned, all of it. 

Apple doesn’t let you move those licenses to another Abm account either. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. You’re starting fresh. 

And that’s just the licensing side. The mdm impact catches people off guard. 

ABM and Mdm talk through a token. Delete the abm account and that conversation just stops. In the console, you’ll usually see something like “Disconnected from ABM”. 

Devices don’t unenroll or anything dramatic, but their ABM ownership link is broken, which is why many of them suddenly show up as non-compliant. It looks messy, even though nothing “changed” on the device itself. 

Okay… that’s already worse than I expected. 

What about apps that are already installed though? Do users at least keep those, or does everything fall apart there too? 

Yeah… this is where it really stings. 

Those apps are managed and licensed through ABM. Once the account is deleted, the licenses can’t be validated anymore. Apps can’t be updated, and most Mdms will eventually remove them automatically to stay compliant. 

Books are even harsher. They’re locked to the user’s Apple Id and can’t be reclaimed or reassigned. No backup, no export, no redownload. Once ABM is gone, they’re just… gone.