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I currently have a Gmail account that is associated with many other Google products such as Google+ and YouTube. My email address currently contains my last name and as I am not getting married I want to change it to reflect my new name.

From another question posted on this forum I understand that you can forward your emails from your old account to your new one and can export/import contacts and filters from the previous account. What I am concerned with is having my Google+ and YouTube account connected to my new email address and being able to use the new address to log in to any Google products. In addition I use OpenId on several third party websites (like here!) and I want those sites to still be able to log me in.

Just to be clear I haven't created a new email account yet.

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    Errm, was that Freudian slip?!
    – MrWhite
    Aug 28, 2011 at 23:01
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    I would advise against it until all services offer a safe migration route. The entire process is very disjointed so it is best to stay with your services as there are. If your original account is the primary account and the new account is the primary Google account there. A lot of the services (if not all) will not be transferable, especially YouTube. As much as I hate to admit, Google really dropped the cake and does not want to pick it up (I don't know why though).
    – phwd
    Aug 29, 2011 at 0:21

5 Answers 5

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According to Google, you can sign in with multiple Gmail accounts using the multiple sign in feature. This feature has been around since 2010.

You should be able to use your old account to maintain your Google+ and Youtube accounts, while using a new gmail email address if desired. Hope this helps!

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  • Google engineering director provides explanation in this blog post: link
    – JW01
    Aug 28, 2011 at 17:04
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As far as Google+ is concerned it seems to be possible to use an alternate email account to sign into your Google+ account. From the description there it seems that you may even be able to replace your primary email address.

So basically, after you update your the name on the Google+ account either add the new Gmail account as an alternate or replace the primary account and you'll be able to sign in with the new email.

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    Gmail addresses cannot be used as alternate addresses for signing in. Good creative thinking though!
    – Sarah Price
    Aug 29, 2011 at 18:37
  • I find their phrasing very confusing so the only way to really know would be to try !
    – Itamar
    Aug 29, 2011 at 20:26
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    I work at Google on Gmail and can confirm that you cannot use Gmail address as alternate addresses for signing in. :)
    – Sarah Price
    Sep 1, 2011 at 1:53
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You can't change your Gmail account. You can create a new one and import things from your old account insofar the services allow.

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While you don't have to use a gmail address as a sign-in for your Google account, a Gmail account is a Google account, and mergers aren't currently possible.

I will quote my own answer to a different question:

Although you can't merge Google accounts, You can change the primary email address of one of them (but not to the address of a different Google account, yeah, sorry).

Two methods:

Use this contact form.

Add GMail under the account, which forces GMail to become primary. Add the email you desire as the only secondary address. Then, delete the GMail account - forcing the new secondary email address to be primary.

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As others noted, you cannot change your GMail adress and retain associated accounts (as of Sept 2017), the alternative that IMHO causes the least disruption is:

  1. Create a new e-mail adress on a respectable non-GMail server
  2. Set this new non-GMail address as the "Alternative email" (currently in My Account -> Personal info & privacy -> Your Personal Info -> Email -> Advanced, https://myaccount.google.com/email)
  3. In GMail, under Settings -> Accounts and Import, setup your GMail account to retrieve incoming mail from the new account under "Check mail from other accounts:"
  4. Allow GMail to send mail as the new account under "Send mail as:", make the new email the default.
  5. Change the display name of your Google account (https://myaccount.google.com/name)

Your GMail now sends and recieves mail from the new address and you retain all contents of the old Google account, including Drive, Google+, YouTube etc. At the same time, your new non-GMail address can be used to reach you on Google services (e.g, to share documents with you on Google Drive). You can also use the new non-GMail address to sign in to Google.

So you get everything as if you changed your Google username, only your new public address is not on GMail.

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  • So I have this solution for 6 months and there are three drawbacks I noticed so far: 1) email sent to the non-Gmail adress may take some 30-60mins to arrive to your inbox 2) Calendar invitations sent to the new non-GMail adress are not added to your calendar and 3) When you share a file on Google Drive, it is shared from your old GMail adress.
    – Martin Modrák
    Mar 24, 2018 at 7:48

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