If you started Gmail when you were 13, your account name might be a little awkward today (unless you were a sensible 13-year-old who knew that in 20 years, references to your favorite boy band and the number “69” in the address wouldn’t look good). However, I have good news. Google allows you to change what comes before “@gmail.com” without creating a new account. The old address remains as an alias, so the messages continue to arrive and you can finally let go of the awkward past.
How to change your Gmail address: new name before “@” without changing your account
Let’s start with the most important thing. This is not a classic “change email address”. Google’s new feature allows create a new @gmail.com address under the same accountand the old one automatically stays as an alias. The effect is exactly what we expect:
- emails sent to old address they still fall into the same box,
- emails sent to new address they also fall into the same box,
- you don’t lose your account data (Drive, Photos, history, etc.),
- you can slowly and successively change your access details to other services where you have logged in for years with your old email address.
Google also emphasizes that the function exists gradually implemented and not everyone will see it right away. The entire process has already been described on their help pages, but in my case the feature is still not available, so apparently some people will have to be patient.
Who is this solution for?
This solution is tailored to a very specific case: you have an account with an embarrassing (e.g. childhood account) or outdated (e.g. name change) name, but over the years you have connected half of the Internet to it (banking, streaming, shopping, logging in). Instead of moving everything to a new mailbox, you can simply “lift” the address.
What changes and what stays the same?
What’s left is:
- all emails and account details,
- logging in to Google services,
- receiving mail to the old address (because it becomes an alias).
Worth knowing:
- old “traces” are not always updated retroactively – Google gives an example that, for example, older Calendar events may still show the old address.
- the new address is additional, but you can’t simply delete the old one: Google explicitly states that the previous address remains as an alternative/alias.
How to change @gmail.com address step by step
The path described by Google looks like this:
- Go to your Google account settings page and go to Personal data.
- Open section E-mail and select Google account email.
- If you can, you’ll see the option here Change your Google account email address.
- Enter your new username (whatever comes before the “@”). Google specifies that this must be an address that is not in use.
- Confirm the change according to the on-screen instructions.
If you don’t see the new option, the feature most likely hasn’t arrived in your account yet (its implementation is gradual).
Limits and rules worth knowing about
Google described the specific limitations:
- you can create a new @gmail.com address once every 12 months,
- total you can create up to three new @gmail.com addresses within one account (i.e. ultimately have up to four: original + three new ones),
- you can go back to your previous address as your main address.
How do I know which address the email came to?
Just check the box “down” in the message – there you will see whether the email was sent to the old or new address. If you want to limit the use of the old address, Google suggests that you can do it with filters.
What if you want to send emails “from a new” (or “old”) address?
In Gmail, you can set what address you send from by default (and what the default “Reply-To” is). Google describes this in Gmail help (selecting the sender’s address, setting the default one). This will be useful when you want people to immediately see your new version of the address, even if they wrote to the old one.
