Creating a NEW primary Gmail address while keeping my OLD Google Account [Solved!]

Rikushix

I have two email accounts: one for personal/professional use among family and school and whatnot, and one for "things I sign up for online". That's how it started out, anyway. The former is based off my parents' ISP (I don't live at home), while the latter is a Gmail address. My parents recently let me know that they're planning on getting rid of their ISP in the not-too-distant future. This means that I have to start funnelling all those official emails I get to another address. Fine.

The problem is that the Gmail address is something I came up with when I was, like, 13. "dopehustla420" it ain't, but it's not exactly something I want to use when emailing family members or profs. Unfortunately, I've tied my Google Account to my Android phone. I could create a new Google account entirely for my professional purposes, but this seems pretty silly. It would be annoying having to deal with syncing back and forth between different Google accounts on my phone for different apps, and it's high time I had one unified email address anyway.

I would like to (hopefully!) delete my Gmail address tied to my account, and then create a new email address under my old account using a much more polished name. Is this feasible, and more importantly, is it possible for me to backup all my email stored with current Gmail address before deleting it?

Ataxrxes

I believe you can just create an additional Gmail handle tied to your current account and set it as primary so all mail you send will go out from that handle until you specify otherwise. I have three different Gmail handles all linked under one account for different purposes and it has worked fine for me. I'm not sure how it would work with your phone, but I think that you could just change the email address and it would still be the same overall account information. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can have your other email outside of Gmail forwarded to your Gmail account as well.

Rikushix

Is this what you meant? I can't seem to add another Gmail address (already created or not). How did you manage to get three under one account?

Daenris

I have a similar situation with a work and a personal gmail. If you create your new work email, and then log into either one, under settings -> Accounts and Imports you should have the option to "add another email address you own"

Once this is set up you can choose which email address to send mail from when you send a new message. When replying, you can set it to reply from the email it was addressed to.

I think I might have had to also go to my other email (the one I wouldn't be logging in as normally) and set it to forward to my primary gmail, but there might be a better way to link the accounts now as this was set up years ago.

ceres

I have a separate account I use for things like applying to jobs, because yeah, the email address I came up with years ago is not the first thing I want a potential employer to see. I just use it in a separate browser and don't worry about changing my old email address because I don't feel like going through the process of telling everyone my email has changed. It doesn't seem worth it when I can just make a separate one for official stuff.

Ataxrxes

Go into your Gmail account, click the settings icon in the corner and under settings go to Accounts and Import. There it will say "Send Mail as" and you can click "add another email address you own." Everything you need is under that tab. You can even add other POP3 addresses there like I was saying. You can from there specify which address you send mail from, which address you reply to things from, all kinds of stuff. It's really easy and handy. Just create a new Gmail with your same info then sign into your original account and add the new one. It will do half the work for you.

Hewn

Ataxrxes wrote: »

Go into your Gmail account, click the settings icon in the corner and under settings go to Accounts and Import. There it will say "Send Mail as" and you can click "add another email address you own." Everything you need is under that tab. You can even add other POP3 addresses there like I was saying. You can from there specify which address you send mail from, which address you reply to things from, all kinds of stuff. It's really easy and handy. Just create a new Gmail with your same info then sign into your original account and add the new one. It will do half the work for you.

I do this as well and it's really easy. I hated logging into several e-mail accounts constantly to stay up to date, but now gmail does all the work for me.

You can also easily create labels that will filter mail into specific folders for easy sorting. This helps tremendously if you're getting a high volume and want to keep your different accounts and mail varieties in order.

Rikushix

Thanks guys, I didn't realize that utility offered that much functionality. It's nice that I won't have to deal with syncing between two different Google Accounts on my phone. This way I can at least keep the nonprofessional email open for as long as I like to funnel those messages over to my new address. The new one is now my default. Much appreciated!

(did you know that every single gmail address is now taken? yep. they're all gone. that's what it feels like, anyway)