Recently we had a little Google issue. We randomly received an email from Google letting us know that the main email address attached to our account had been successfully updated – with a Gmail address that wasn't ours.
The thing with Google accounts, is that if the email attached to your account ends in @gmail.com, you usually can't change it.
How does this happen? And more importantly, if you get an incorrect Gmail address attached to your google account, what can you do to fix it?
We hit the internet to sleuth out a solution to our problem and here's what we found...
You have two options:
Delete your Gmail address or Delete your entire Google Account.
If you don’t use or need the Gmail address, then you can remove it from your Google account. You can delete a Gmail address attached to your account without deleting your entire Google account.
Here’s what will happen when you delete your Gmail address:
- Your Gmail address, once deleted, will not be able to be used by you or anyone else ever again.
- Your emails will be deleted.
- Your Google Account, including purchases made on Google Play and your search history, WILL NOT be deleted.
Here’s how to delete your Gmail address:
- Go to the Delete a service or your account page.
- Click Delete a service. You may need to sign-in to your account again.
- Next to Gmail, click Delete (trash icon).
- Follow on screen instructions.
If you don’t use your Google account, you can delete the entire account.
Here’s how to delete your entire Google Account:
- Go to the Delete a service or your account page.
- Click Delete your Google account. You may need to sign-in to your account again.
- Scroll to the bottom and read both acknowledgements, ticking the boxes beside them.
- Click Delete Account.
CAUTION: This will delete your entire Google account, not just your Gmail address. If you have any pending financial transactions you will still be responsible for those charges. After deleting your Google account you’ll have a short period of time to get it back, but after that you can never get it back again because Google does not recycle deleted accounts - once a gmail address has been used it can never be used again.
