Google lets U.S. users change their Gmail address after 22 years

Google is rolling out a long-awaited option for many people in the United States: the company said users can now change the Gmail address tied to their Google Account, after gradually testing the policy in India.

In a blog post made public this week, Google said the feature has reached all U.S. Google Account users. The change is designed for people who want to update Gmail handles they created when they first signed up years ago, including addresses Google described as awkward, embarrassing or nonsensical.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the update would be welcomed by people who have kept their accounts but “outgrown” the original address. In a post on X, Pichai wrote that users could “say goodbye” to older Gmail addresses created “at the time.”

Google also updated a help page to outline how the process works. The steps, as Google described them, start in a user’s Google Account settings: users go to their account page, select Personal info, then Email, and choose the option to “Change Google Account email.” Google said users may not see the setting immediately if it has not reached their account yet, and it characterized the rollout as gradual.

Google said users will need to enter a new address and then confirm the change. The company said the new address cannot be identical to any existing address, and it also cannot be one that was “used by someone in the past and then deleted.”

Google said the old address will remain as an alternate, so users can still access email sent to it. Messages sent to either the old or new addresses will appear in the Gmail inbox, and users can check the “to” field in an email to see which address it was sent to. Google said users can switch back to the old address by changing their settings.

The company also laid out limits on how often the address can be changed. Google said users who want another new Gmail address after switching once will have to wait at least 12 months before changing again, and that users can only do so three times in total.

Google warned that Gmail addresses are used beyond gmail.com, including to sign in to Google services such as YouTube and Google Docs and to some third-party websites and apps. The company cautioned that some non-Google apps and services may not recognize the account after a Gmail address change, and it provided troubleshooting guidance in its help documentation.

Google also said Chromebook users might encounter issues at first, though it said many problems may resolve after a few hours. If problems persist, the help guidance says users “may need to change back to your previous Google Account email,” while still allowing the new address to be used to send and receive messages.

The option was rolled out quietly in India late last year, according to Google’s account of the timeline, and Google did not include details on when users in other countries will get access to the change.