Google will let you change your Gmail email address!
Anyone who created a Gmail account in the early 2000s and now feels embarrassed every time they have to spell out an address made at sixteen — something like littlecat88 — can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Google is about to introduce a long-requested feature: the ability to change your primary Gmail email address without giving up your account.
Until now, this option was limited to users who had linked third-party accounts, leaving everyone else stuck with questionable choices made during their teenage years or early college days. With the upcoming update, users will be able to change their username directly from the “My Account” settings.
How changing your Gmail address works
When you switch your primary email address, the old one doesn’t disappear. Instead, it remains active as an alias. This means you’ll continue receiving emails sent to the old address, and you can still use it to sign in to Google services like YouTube, Maps, Drive, Calendar, and more.
So even if someone keeps emailing the old address — or if you don’t remember which email you used to sign up for a shopping site years ago — everything will still work as expected.
All existing data across Google services stays exactly where it is. Archived emails, Drive files, YouTube playlists, Maps history, and everything else remain untouched. The change only affects the visible email address, not the underlying account infrastructure.
The limitations
To prevent abuse, Google has set clear limits. Each account will be allowed up to three address changes in its lifetime, for a total of four unique addresses including the original one. Once those changes are used up, the final address becomes permanent.
After making a change, you won’t be able to delete or modify the new address again for 12 months. In other words, it’s a decision worth thinking through carefully.
The original email address will remain permanently tied to the account and cannot be claimed by anyone else. It may also continue to appear in certain parts of the Google ecosystem, such as existing Calendar events or old archived email conversations.
Gradual rollout
Google hasn’t made a big official announcement. Instead, it has quietly started publishing documentation in select languages as it prepares for a gradual rollout.
The feature is expected to become available to all users soon, although “soon” in Google terms could mean weeks or even months. Since Gmail is a core service, Google is taking a cautious approach, testing the feature with small groups before rolling it out more widely.
