Google has finally answered users’ cries, allowing Gmail users to swap out embarrassing teenage email addresses.
Gmail account holders can now change their existing @gmail.com address while retaining their data and services.
Once changed, old email addresses will remain active, and users will continue to receive emails sent to both the old and new addresses.
Saved data connected to earlier addresses, including photos, messages and emails, will not be affected.
The ability to change Google Account email addresses is gradually rolling out to all users, and is not immediately available to everyone, Google noted on its support page.
Gmail users who want to switch to more anonymous email addresses or felt burdened by the email addresses they chose as kids celebrated the update on social media.
“Feature needed: 2005. Feature arriving: 2025. Gap: two decades of suffering,” one user posted on X.
“So all those years of ‘cool’ usernames and cringe emails can be erased… shame it can’t delete the memories associated with them,” another X user posted.
“Nah I’m keeping StonerBeast42069 forever!!” one Reddit user quipped.
Members of the transgender community and others who have changed their names were also happy as the new options let them distance themselves from their former names.
Competing services such as Microsoft Outlook have long allowed users to easily change their primary address by adding an “alias.”
Google only allows accounts that end in @gmail.com to make changes, and the new address must also end in @gmail.com.
While users can reuse their old Google Account email address anytime, once changed, they cannot register another email address for the same account for the next 12 months.
Users interested in changing their emails under the new system need to confirm that it has been rolled out for their account.
In their Gmail account, users can click “Manage Your Google Account.” Under “Personal Info,” they can click on their Gmail account email address. If the option is available in their region, they can proceed by clicking on the “Change your Google Account email address” option.
