Can I Change Email Address On Gmail

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Losing access to your Google / Gmail account can be an incredibly frustrating and unhappy experience. When researching this article, I came across several accounts of people who had been locked out of their accounts after forgetting their passwords — and a few who had however non been able to get dorsum in, even after several weeks.

Google does provide a list of methods to try if you've been locked out of your business relationship — either because you've forgotten your password or because somebody has hacked into your business relationship and changed information technology. Sometimes, they work.

Your options beyond Google's suggestions may be limited, and then it's all-time to exist prepared ahead of fourth dimension. Hither are some suggestions to place you in the best possible position to get your stuff back.

Back up your account regularly

If you should e'er (knock on wood) lose access to your account, information technology volition be less of a blow — and is less probable to get your blood pressure shooting up — if yous have a recent fill-in of your information. Google provides a ways for you to download your data that it calls Takeout. You tin download all the data from all of your Google apps, or from some of them, or just from a unmarried app such equally Gmail.

The formats of the downloads vary depending on the type of data. Your email will be downloaded in the MBOX format, which can exist and so uploaded into another Gmail account or into almost other electronic mail services or apps.

Utilize a countersign director

An ounce of prevention beingness worth — well, y'all know the residuum — the best manner to foreclose yourself from losing access to a Google business relationship considering of a lost password is to use a password managing director to keep your password safe. (And no, keeping your Google password in the Google Password Manager isn't going to help.) Password managers like Bitwarden, 1Password, and Zoho Vault tin make sure that sudden brain freezes won't keep you out of your email.

Proceed a record of your old password

One of the ways Google verifies your identity if you lose your password is to ask you to type in your previous password. If it'due south been a while since you changed your password (assuming you've ever really inverse it), it may be hard (or impossible) to recollect that sometime password. So when y'all change your Google password — and it's not a bad thought to alter it regularly — continue a record of your sometime password somewhere safe.

A good strategy here is to use your password manager — you lot use i, correct? — to go along track of onetime passwords. Most password managers will offer to update the existing entry for an app when you create a new password; if possible, you can opt instead to create a new entry and and then go back and edit the old one to say something like "Gmail - old countersign."

If yous're non using a password manager (and if you've lost your password, there's a good risk you're non), and then maybe you can proceed a list of old passwords in an encrypted file. Just in case.

Worse comes to worst, Google suggests that you try to remember any countersign you've used in the past — or your best guess.

Bank check to meet what recovery info is available

Information technology's a skilful idea to provide Google alee of time with as much recovery info as you feel comfortable with, so that if you ever need to verify your identity, you have some choices.

It's a good idea to include several ways to verify your account. — *It'due south a good idea to include several ways to verify your business relationship.*

Go to your Google account folio and then click on "Security" in the left-hand cavalcade.
Scroll down to "Means we can verify it'southward you."
You'll see whether yous've registered a recovery phone number or a recovery email. (Note: if you entered an reply to a security question quondam in the past, you'll encounter that in the listing as well; however, if you lot click on it, y'all'll get a notice telling you that Google no longer supports security questions.)
If you don't take any of these filled in, it may be a good idea to fill in at least one. If y'all want to be actually careful, go alee and enter your info. Here's how.

Fix a recovery e-mail account

Your recovery electronic mail business relationship can be some other Gmail account, another email business relationship from a different service, or even a relative's or friend's account. (Make sure that relative or friend is security-savvy.)

Go to the "Ways we can verify information technology's yous" section (see above) and click on "Recovery email."
Type in your called recovery email address and click on "Verify."
Google will send a six-digit verification code to the email address you entered. Go to your email, copy the code, and go back to the recovery folio to enter the lawmaking. (You lot accept 24 hours before you have to get another code.)
You should get a modest pop-upwardly indicating that your recovery electronic mail has been verified.

You can include a verified recovery email to help in the recovery of your account. — *You can include a verified recovery email to help in the recovery of your business relationship.*

Fix a recovery phone number:

Go to the "Ways we can verify it'southward yous" section (meet above) and click on "Recovery email."
Click on "Add Recovery Phone" and enter the phone number in the pop-upwards box.
Google volition text you a verification code at that phone number. Enter it in the pop-upwards box.

You can also add a recovery phone number; Google will call or text you with a code. — *Yous tin also add a recovery phone number; Google will telephone call or text you with a code.*

Call back when you started the business relationship

If all else fails, Google may ask yous approximately when you created the account. Personally, I accept no idea when I started most of my Gmail accounts; if you want to cheque out when you lot started yours, probably the easiest mode is to find your earliest Gmails (now, when you have admission to your account) and keep that info somewhere condom. (This, of course, assumes that yous haven't been efficient plenty to delete all your old emails; in that case, this won't help.)

In your Gmail account, go to the left-paw carte du jour, detect "All Mail," and click on it.
Await in the upper right corner for the number of emails you accept. (It volition say something like "1-fifty of 2,000.") Click on that and select "Oldest."
Your email volition now sort in the lodge of oldest first; if you (similar me) oasis't been very proficient about deleting email, this should give yous some idea of when you started the account.

Finding your oldest emails may help you remember when you started your account. — *Finding your oldest emails may help y'all remember when you started your account.*

Google does offer some other pieces of advice for those who are having problem restoring their websites, including sending all the info you tin using your usual computer, in the same location that you commonly compute in, and with your usual browser.

Recover your password

So what if yous actually do lose your password or can't go into your account for another reason? Well, you lot get to Google's recovery page and start answering those questions.

Unfortunately, when I tried it on a test account, I realized that my options were express indeed. I was starting time asked for the terminal countersign I had used, then for a verification code from my alternate email, a verification code from my phone, and the respond to my security question (despite Google's exclamation that information technology no longer used security questions). When I claimed I didn't have whatever of these available, the last screen simply urged me to effort again. I went through the whole rigmarole again — and was again urged to "Try again." There was no alternative offered.

You can also attempt going to the "Can't sign into your Google Account" page and selecting i or more of the choices offered to see if there are any other options.

Following along with one of these issues may help you recover your account. — *Following along with one of these issues may assistance you lot recover your business relationship.*

But exist aware that, even if you tin enter the data Google's bots enquire for, it may not exist plenty. Dorsum in 2017, tech journalist Ron Miller got locked out of his Google account; in an commodity, he described his considerable travails.

And so what can yous do? If you really want to continue your emails — and other Google data — bachelor, make sure you lot have every bit many means to restore your account equally possible, and don't forget to back it all up, just in case. Otherwise, afterwards trying everything you lot can, you lot may have to do what Google suggests at the bottom of its "Tips to complete business relationship recovery steps" page — and create a new account.

Update, December tenth, 2021, 9AM ET: This article was originally published on August 4th, 2021, and has been updated to add information on password managers, and to reflect current methods and options in Gmail.