If you’re embarrassed by your Gmail address but haven’t wanted to start a new account for fear of losing messages, we have good news. Ahead of Gmail’s 22nd anniversary on Wednesday, Google says it is now letting US users change their account username.
That’s right: You can now swap out that less-than-professional address you registered years ago but still use because it became the de facto hub of your online life back when that joke username still seemed like a good idea.
Google announced the change in a rather brief note on its Keyword blog on Tuesday, only mentioning that it was now available for all Google Account users in the US. This vulture can personally attest to not having the ability available in his account, suggesting that like most other features Google rolls out for its products, this is probably being released gradually.
If you do have the option to change your Gmail username, you can follow the steps on this page to do so, though it’s quite simple for us to explain here, too.
While logged into your Gmail account, look to the right side of the screen for your profile picture. When you click it, you should see a menu with Manage your Google Account at the top – that’s what you want to click next.
From there, click Personal info in the left-hand menu, then select Email. Under Google Account email, you should see the option to Change your Google Account email. Click that and follow the instructions.
For those worried about all the emails potentially lost to the ether between changing your Gmail address and letting everyone know the new one, don’t worry: the old Gmail username doesn’t actually go anywhere.
Per the help page linked above, your previous Gmail address stays on as an alternate address, and emails will still be received by both, effectively making it an alias for the new account. You can still sign in to Google services using either the old or new address in case you forget what you renamed that 20-year-old account at some point.
Be sure you want to change that Gmail username before you do so, though: While you can change back to the old address at any time (on account of it not really going anywhere), you can only create one new Google Account username every 12 months, and you can’t delete the new one after it’s created, either. ®
