A few months ago, a feature arrived at Google that many of us had been waiting for for years: the ability to change the email address we use in Gmail and across all the services linked to our Google account. For now, this new option is only available for accounts in the United States, but, while we wait for it to reach other countries, it is already a very interesting step forward for refreshing an account that we probably created quite a few years ago.
Until now, we could only create aliases or secondary addresses, while the main address stayed fixed forever. With this new option, we can keep our account and its entire history intact while changing the address completely. Let’s take a look at how to make the change and what happens when we do it.
How to change our Gmail address
Changing the address of our main Gmail account is very simple. We can do it from the browser on any of our devices by following these steps:
- We open the Google Account page and sign in with our account if the system asks us to.
- We go to the Personal info section.
- We tap Email and then Google Account email.
- In that section, we select Change Google Account email.
- We enter the new username we want to use. At this point, Google asks us for an available @gmail.com address that also meets its availability rules.
- We confirm by tapping Change email and then Yes, change email.
- We follow the instructions shown on screen until the process is complete.
Once the change is finished, the new address becomes the account’s main email address and the previous one starts working as an alternate email. That means we do not lose access to anything, since we can continue signing in with either address and receive emails in both inboxes.
It is worth keeping in mind, though, that Google allows us to change the main address once a year and up to a maximum of three times over the lifetime of the account, so it is a very good idea to choose carefully and make sure we type the new address correctly.
What happens when we change our Gmail address
Changing the main Gmail address is completely seamless for all our data and services. We will not lose a single message, our Google Drive files, our YouTube history, or our Google Photos library, which we can move to iCloud. All the information remains linked to the same account, simply under the new address.
As we have mentioned, the original address remains as an alias, which means we can continue receiving the emails that were sent there. On top of that, emails we send from Gmail can now be sent either from the new address or from the original one, depending on which sender address we choose when composing a message. Finally, if at some point we want to reverse the change, Google lets us switch back to the previous address easily, as long as we have not exceeded the annual limit on changes.
For those of us who have been using Gmail for years, this new option is genuinely interesting. It allows us to move on from an address we chose when we first started out to one that reflects our current identity more accurately. Being able to do that while keeping our entire history and avoiding the need to create a new account is the best part, because it means we get to keep the same account we have always had, just with a new name.
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