Everyone knows someone with an extra-cringy email address they’d rather not admit to. For years, the only remedy for Gmail users was to simply admit defeat and sign up for another one. Now, Google is working on a way for users to change their ‘@gmail.com’ addresses, with the change spotted in an updated English support page.
Big news for Gmail stans
9to5Google was the first to spot the incoming feature back in December, which appeared on a Hindi support page, reading: “If you’d like, you can change your Google Account email address that ends in gmail.com to a new email address that ends in gmail.com.” That sentiment has now deferred to Google’s English-speaking users.
Google has yet to widely announce the feature, with the stray mention in the support page being the only evidence that the feature is coming. We say ‘coming’ because the migration support isn’t live at the time of writing, with no word on when that could change, despite Google’s own words confirming the feature.
The support page points out what’ll happen if a user follows through with the change:
- The email address the user is swapping from will become an alternate email address.
- Emails will be sent to both the user’s old and new addresses.
- The data saved in an account (photos, messages and emails) won’t be affected.
- Users can swap back to the original email address at any time, though they “can’t create a new Google Account email ending in gmail.com for the next 12 months.”
- When signing in, users can opt to use their old or new addresses to sign into Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Google Play or Drive.
According to Google, to begin the process of changing your email address (when it eventually goes live everywhere), users must first head here: myaccount.google.com/google-account-email and sign in. Then, click Personal Info > Email > Google Account email. Under “Google Account email”, click Change Google Account email. Review any potential issues Google might have, and voila, you can pick a new username.
