Google rolls out long-awaited Gmail feature that lets users change email IDs while keeping all existing data safe

Google began quietly rolling out the ability to change your @gmail.com email address without losing any data or account history today. The company had long held the position that once a user selected their Gmail username, that handle would be their “permanent” one, but as of today, they’re finally allowing users to select a new email address within the same account.

Previously, a Gmail address change required manually forwarding mail to a new address (since you could no longer “swap” addresses, or migrate data within Gmail settings), and also involved migrating data such as contacts, photos, files, calendar events, and app access from one Google account to another. That process was painful and error-prone, and there was no guarantee that all data would successfully port over. With this new change, users will be able to select a new Gmail username (the portion of the address before “@gmail.com”), and everything will automatically move over without having to leave the Gmail settings screen.

To be clear, as noted above, it will take a few clicks to select a new Gmail username once this feature is visible, but you don’t have to re-enter all of your personal information, manually port over data from an old address, or do any other of the account-splintering gymnastics that were previously required.

The ability to change your Gmail address is currently in the process of being rolled out to users, and may not yet be visible in your account.

When it does become available, users can find the option to change their Gmail address in Google Account → Personal info → Email in settings. Google’s support pages for the feature now exist, and have already appeared in several language versions of its help documents, including Hindi, so it’s likely in some form of early testing at this point. If it’s available in your account, you can change your address, and all of your Gmail, Drive, YouTube, Photos, and other data will remain where it is.

Your old email address will become an alias for your new one, which means:

1. Emails sent to the old address will still arrive in your inbox.

2. You’ll be able to sign in to Google services using either your old or new email address.

3. All of your existing emails, files, contacts, photos, calendar events, and app access will remain intact.

The only real limitations or caveats are as follows:

After you change your Gmail address, you will not be able to create another new Gmail address for a year.

Google says you can only change your email address a small number of times over the lifetime of an account, with a limit of up to three or four total address changes (including this initial change). We reached out to Google to ask if these restrictions would apply to all accounts around the world, or if they could be different for certain accounts or regions, but the company declined to provide any additional clarity on the rules at this time.

Google also advises that you back up your data before making the switch, to ensure that all of your information is retained, though it’s not clear if this is Google’s way of saying that app preferences and other bits of metadata might not transfer in some cases or if it’s just a blanket caution that’s provided with any major account change.

It may sound like a small thing, but as people’s lives and identities have increasingly moved online, one’s email address has often become a key part of their digital identity, used as a contact point on resumes, business cards, and other professional communications. For those who have long wanted to be able to change a Gmail address within their account, today’s update is a huge step forward in Google’s treatment of its most-used accounts.

As the feature continues to roll out, we’ll update this post with any additional information we learn about Google’s new address change feature.