3

I'm trying to associate an email address with my Google account so I can receive calendar nominations.

From https://myaccount.google.com, I go to Personal info & privacy > Your personal info > Email > Alternate emails > ADD OTHER EMAIL.

However, when I choose ADD OTHER EMAIL and enter my email address, I get:

"This address is already used with another Google account."

However, the email address I'm entering is NOT associated with another Google account. It USED to be associated with this one, but it no longer is, and is no longer listed, and calendar invites no longer work.

When I get Calendar invites at this alternate email address and try to accept them, it doesn't work. Instead I get: 

Google Calendar invitations cannot be forwarded via email. 
This event belongs to username@aya.yale.edu and you are logged
in as username@gmail.com. Please ask the meeting organizer to
add you to the event from Google Calendar.

How can I associate this email address with my Google account given that it thinks it's associated with a different account?

Improve this question

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

I solved it by using the same solution as Coralie i.e. removing all Google Docs visitor sessions connected to that email.

If you encounter the error message "This address is already used with another Google account" while trying to add an alternate email address I therefore first recommend ensuring that there is no Google Account connected by following Ruben's guide in his answer.

After that also ensure there is no Google Docs visitor session connected to that email. The Google help page about visitor sessions has a guide for removing visitor sessions although this did not work for me. Instead what worked was starting the process of creating a new Google account with the custom domain email. You will get the option to delete all existing visitor sessions during the onboarding process and you don't need to actually complete the account creation.

Improve this answer
1
  • 3
    Thank you - deleting the visitor sessions during the sign-up process then aborting the process allowed me to add the alternative email to my profile.
    – Heather Turner
    Nov 28, 2022 at 16:52
3

Short answer

It's not possible to use a Google account as alternate email address of another Google account.

Brief Explanation

It's very likely that the referred account is still associated to a Google managed account even if you don't have access to the Google services with that account anymore and the emails are being forwarded to your Gmail consumer account.

It's worth to mention that the domain admin could set email routing rules to automatically forward emails to an external email address or another email service and and keep the account in the domain user list while blocking the access for that account to the Google managed services.

Extended Explanation

In 2006, Google announced that domain owners could use Gmail as their email service. Over the years it evolved to Google for Work, a brand that encompases several Google product and services including managed Google accounts, which formerly was referred as Google Apps accounts. In the last years the Google Apps term is used broadly used even by the Google employees which lead people to confusion besides that Gmail could be or not enabled for the Google managed accounts.

To check if an email address is the username of a Google managed account

  1. If you know the account password, go to www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com and sign in using the email address and password.
  2. If you don't know the password search the email address in services like Google+, Google Contacts, Google Drive (sharing a file with the email address), etc.

To check if a domain have managed accounts go to

  • sites.google.com/a/yourdomain.com
  • groups.google.com/a/yourdomain.com

If the domain doesn't have any managed account you will get a "Domain not found" error, otherwise, you could get a message telling that it's required an authorized account or to get access to the home page of that services.

If the account is a managed account but it is suspended, the user could not access to Google services using that account.

References

Improve this answer
2

In case it can be useful to somebody, I came across the same error message : "This address is already used with another Google account."

It happened that I had a "visitor" Google session open with that email address, I stopped that session and only then I could add that email as alternate email address.

Improve this answer
1

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.