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Google Now Lets You Change Your Gmail Address (techcrunch.com) 31

Posted by BeauHD from the years-in-the-making dept.
Google is rolling out a feature in the U.S. that lets some users change their Gmail address without creating a new account or losing their data. TechCrunch reports: Users who have access to this feature can go to their Google Account settings, navigate to Personal info > Email > Google Account email option. Tap on the "Change Google Account email" button to start the process of changing your username.

Users will be able to change their username only once every 12 months. Plus, they won't be able to delete their new email address for that period of time.

The company said users' old emails will be preserved, and the old email address will serve as an alternate address for the account. Users will be able to sign in to Google services using both the old and the new addresses. You can learn more via Google's support page.

Google Now Lets You Change Your Gmail Address More | Reply

Google Now Lets You Change Your Gmail Address

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  • I _like_ the email address I created when I was eight? What's wrong with sending out resumes with my SofaKingGood@gmail.com address on them?

    • Re:But, but, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @04:14PM (#66070934) Homepage
      I still have my 5 letter no number or symbol username created when creating a dial-up account through a major network more than two decades ago. Some things you outgrow but some things you are glad you never discarded.
      • Everybody in my family had an aol.com email address around 2000. I honestly don't remember what mine was. Even my crush who was a singer/songwriter/actress that did some of the Sims 3 voices had an aol.com address (I had a very long email conversation with her in 1998, before she married a lawyer from Marin and had kids)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Liquid-Gecka ( 319494 )
        You don't have a 5 character username unless you worked at Google and figured out the magic to compile the caribou app without that restriction. 6 characters was always the absolute minimum for a reason.. I should know, I compiled the caribou binary while a Gmail SRE and end up with a 5 character user name that gets HUNDREDS of spam messages a day. =)
      • After an invite I got the firstname of my daughter in ~2005, she was 2yo! Let's say her email is something like emilie@gmail.com it's pretty neat.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Isn't it awkward to still use that address as the VP?

    • What's wrong with sending out resumes with my SofaKingGood@gmail.com address on them?

      People might think you're JD Vance? :-)

  • I got in early enough on gmail that I was able to grab my first and middle initials and last name. I think I'll keep it.

    • I managed to get [first initial][common last name]@gmail. You wouldn't believe how many mis-addressed emails I get. Retirement financial details from HR, invoices, airline tickets, bank notifications: I could throw one hell of a Family Reunion. It's so common I keep a handy link to copy and paste:

      Here's a relevant comic (this happens a lot):
      https://xkcd.com/1279/ [xkcd.com]
      Hold your mouse over the picture for more info.

      • Same.

        Most of my email these days is for other “me’s”, its getting to the point that the address is unusable and Ive been considering moving away from it.

        It doesnt help that Gmails spam filtering is also shite now, and I get 50-60 spam emails into my inbox a day.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        I have my very common first and last name. I've gotten class lists with names, addresses and phone numbers, some woman's security system notifications ("Karen has gone to bed for the night..."), and one time a shady real estate development company added me to their dropbox with all their shady plans and accounting.

    • Same but different
      I took first name last initial, six characters, early on.
      I'm keeping it despite the spam from having a common first name and last initial

  • When Gmail was invite only, was sent a note for that, so grabbed it. No complaints ever since.

  • 12 months (Score:4, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @04:44PM (#66070984)

    Term limits for the Nigerian Minster of Finance?

  • Google "discovers" the email alias.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      Nothing new about this at all. Pay for the business version with your own domain, and it's been possible for as long as I've run things. This is *exactly* the same thing, including using the old address as an alias. They just expanded it to free accounts.

      It's not exactly rocket surgery, after all.

  • Even if I could in theory change my email address, there is so much depending on it, it would be huge trouble to change it. For example, if you are in the UK with settled status, you need to make sure you keep your email address and phone number. Result: Iâ(TM)m paying BT £7.50 every month for three email addresses (up to 10 actually, but I only need three).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      That's why it automatically sets up the old address as an alias to the new. Permanently, if I don't miss my guess (there's no reason it shouldn't).

      Lets you take your time updating everything dependent on it, or not bother at all.

  • Instead of forget password... (Score:3)

    by joshuark ( 6549270 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @05:25PM (#66071046)

    Instead of forget password because the browser auto-completes, then lose it; now it could be forget your e-mail address, then you inadvertently flush the browser cache and....well technical progress.

    --JoshK.

  • It'll probably break all your integrations (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Third party sign-in-with-Google integrations tend to use your email address to link accounts. You probably want to review these at https://myaccount.google.com/c... [google.com] before you change to check if you can change addresses in the third party systems first.

  • Next feature request (Score:3)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2026 @07:47PM (#66071238)

    The ability to merge accounts.

  • Seems like a great way to increase the rate at which GMail users will reach the end of their free email storage and have to upgrade to a paid storage plan.

  • that's one way to get users to signup for added storage

    Multiple addresses- same storage quota

    curious how they solve the "from"...

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