How to Change your Gmail address in 5 Simple Steps

Updated: February 10, 2020

Follow this simple 5-step guide to quickly change your Gmail address and eliminate most of the frustration you'd get by going it alone. It's based on our learnings after helping thousands of people smoothly change gmail addresses, and you'll find referenced links with deeper explanations when necessary.

Step 1: Get acquainted with Google's "how to change Gmail address" policy

Spoiler alert: Google doesn't let you change gmail addresses - bummer!

But you should convince yourself anyway, here's how:

Google offers settings for you to manage the email addresses associated with your Google Account (if there is any place where you'd be able to change a Gmail address, this would be the place!)
But, when you look closely at your Google Account email, underneath the Gmail address you want to change you'll see the text "You can't change this address."
If you are adventurous, you might try clicking Advanced, and you'll think you've struck gold when you see the section called "Alternate emails" describing how you can add "other email addresses you can use to sign in to your account"... but this will ultimately result in more frustration as you cannot use a Gmail address as your alternate email address (ref: Google Answer 176347 ) !!
Searching the web leads to scores of articles like this one which will tell you to create a new Gmail account.
And eventually, you'll come to realize that the only way to CHANGE your Gmail address is to create a NEW Gmail address... bummer! Yes, it's a difficult realization for everyone because years of your life probably went into your old Gmail account. But don't fret, you can easily change your gmail account and still easily keep your email, contacts, calendars, and drive files from your old Gmail address!

Step 2: Change Your Gmail ID - Decide on your new Gmail Address and create it

Choose your address wisely. Your new Gmail address is more than "your account" ...it's the account of your future YOU!

Here are some things to consider:

What do you want to achieve by learning how to change your Gmail address?

Will you be establishing yourself for professional success?
Cute and funny email addresses like "mike-the-crazy-monkey-man@gmail.com" may get you through the door on a few opportunities, but it's got some disadvantages too!
Will you be proudly asserting your independence?
Nothing can be more self-assuring than re-establishing yourself in your community under a name that represents you!
Will you be proudly associating yourself with a family name (i.e. after marriage)?
Consider that your future self might be giving this email address out to your spouse's colleagues, your children's future teachers, your future home loan officer, future medical staff, and others.
Or, is this just a place for you to store backups of email & files?
In that case, something like "jane.smith.archive@gmail.com" might do the trick!

What type of account do you want?

You can create a FREE Gmail account (which ends in @gmail.com)
You'll get 15GB of free storage. Set up a free Gmail account
Or, you can create a paid Google Workspace account (which ends in your own personal domain URL)
Whether it's for professional or family reasons, having your own personal URL makes a clear statement. And Google Workspace is easy because your account works just like a Gmail account! You get Gmail, Drive, Contacts, Calendars, and more. And you get an Administrator console to add more family members or future colleagues to your account.

It's $6 per month for 30 Gb of space, or $12 per month for 2 terabytes storage. You can claim your free trial here at Google Workspace free trial

Ok, now is your moment of truth... Go ahead and create your new account!

Step 3: Quickly copy all your email, contacts, calendars, and drive files to your new Gmail address… and keep all your labels and folders intact!

Just because you're changing your Gmail address doesn't mean you should lose everything you've got. You'll need and want all those emails and Drive files jam-packed with important info; and your list of contacts that auto-populate the "To:" field when drafting a new email; and the all those upcoming birthdays and anniversaries; and... more!

Here are some options to make sure you've got them:

Option A: Use VaultMe.com and you'll be good-to-go in a minute!

VaultMe will quickly & securely copy your Gmail emails, Contacts, Drive files, and Calendar events from your old Gmail address account to the new account with your new Gmail address.

Pros of using VaultMe to change Gmail address:

You'll keep all the folders and labels that you've organized in your Gmail & Drive over the course of time
You'll keep a copy of all those items ‘Shared with Me' by others
You'll save hours of your own time over the next week (versus doing it all yourself for "free")

Cons of using VaultMe to change Gmail address:

We can't really think of any, except that you have to pay for VaultMe. But as they say, time is money. You're valuable and your data is valuable... VaultMe is going to save your data for you and a lot of time!

Option B: Do it manually using "free" methods (but warning: this could take hours/days)

If you've got plenty of time to spare, an amazing internet connection, you're pretty handy with a computer, and you don't mind losing some of your data / organization, then you can take a number of manual steps along with some "free" methods to get your data from one account to the other.

To make it a little easier on you, we've put together this lengthy guide that will walk you step-by-step through doing it yourself with "free" tools like Google Takeout It's literally no sweat off our back (because you're doing all the work), but this guide will definitely help you! And if you take the time to follow it carefully you'll get pretty close to what VaultMe would get you (with some minor drawbacks).

Step 4: (Optional) Set up your old Gmail address to auto-forward all new emails to your new changed Gmail address

Now that you've got all your old email in your new account, you can optionally take a few minutes to make sure all your future emails make their way to your new account too! (Or, instead you can simply check your old email address every once in awhile, if that's an option for you)

To forward emails, follow these steps:

On your computer, go to https://mail.google.com and sign in with your old Gmail address (make sure you're signed in to that OLD account)
1. In the top right, click the Gear Icon to see a list of menu options drop down
2. In the drop down menu, click Settings
3. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab
4. In the "Forwarding" section, click the button Add a forwarding address
5. Enter the email address you want to forward messages to (this is the email you changed your Gmail address to)
6. Click Next and then Proceed and then OK
7. A verification message will be sent to your new Gmail address.
Now, open a different browser window, go to https://mail.google.com and sign in to your new Gmail address
1. Find the verification email sent by Google and open the email
2. Click the verification link in that email message
Now, go back to the settings page for the Gmail account you want to forward messages from (your old Gmail address), and refresh your browser tab
1. Select Forward a copy of incoming mail to
2. Choose what you want to happen with the Gmail copy of your emails. We recommend "Keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox"
3. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes
Now, test to make sure that your emails are forwarding
1. Ask a friend to send you a test email to your old Gmail address and confirm they've sent it
2. Go into your inbox in your old Gmail account to confirm the test email was received
3. Now, go into the inbox of your new Gmail account and confirm that a copy of the email is there as well

(ref: Google Answer 10957 )

Step 5: (Optional) Use this unique feature to email all your family, friends, and colleagues the news that you've changed your Gmail address - then enjoy this new chapter of your new life!

If you used VaultMe to copy your contacts to your changed Gmail address account, then you can VERY quickly send one email to privately reach ALL your contacts you copied from your former account!

Here's how:

Once your VaultMe copy is finished, take note of your unique VaultMe Copy ID (which you'll get notified about once you use VaultMe)
On your computer, go to https://mail.google.com and sign in with your NEW changed Gmail address
In the top left of your Gmail inbox, click Compose to bring up the compose window
In the new message window that pops up, click on the BCC tag (Note: We suggest you use the BCC field so that you can send one email to a hundreds of email addresses in such a way that each recipient will see only their own address on the email and won't see the entire list of email addresses the email was actually sent to. Plus, by doing it this way, nobody can "Reply-all" and say something unintentionally embarrassing to them or you!)
In the BCC field that appears, type in the first few letters of your VaultMe Copy ID to bring up the auto-suggested group of all your contacts from your previous account, and choose the first group on the list that matches your VaultMe Copy ID
Once you've selected the Group, you'll see all the email addresses that were copied from your old Gmail account populate into the BCC area. Inspect the list of email addresses quickly and click the x next to any email address you'd like to remove from the distribution
Now type a Subject line and Message to let everyone know that you've changed your gmail address (and if you're so inclined, let them know how VaultMe.com helped you!)
Push "Send" and away the message goes! Now it's official - so go enjoy this new chapter of your life!