Google Might Finally Allow You To Change Your Gmail Address In 2026

As the most popular provider in the world, Google's Gmail is practically synonymous with personal email. But one issue has plagued Google users ever since Gmail first launched in 2004: Changing your Gmail address  — which is also your Google username, at least by default  — has never been possible.

Whichever Gmail alias you chose for yourself has always been set in stone, and that can be problematic. Maybe you made your account as a teenager and chose an embarrassingly juvenile handle. Or, even worse, maybe your email has been exposed in a security breach, and now you're left open to attacks from whichever ne'er-do-well bought your information on the dark web. You might even have given your email to someone who turned out to be a stalker. Whatever the case, your entire Google account is tied to that email address, and you can't get a new one without starting a new account from scratch.

But that might be changing, at least according to a piece of Google support documentation written in Hindi. When translated to English, the page explains how users with Gmail addresses for usernames can change everything but the @gmail.com portion. It's unclear how widely this will roll out, and it's also not obvious whether you can fully get rid of your original Gmail address, but here's what we know so far.

In late December, users spotted a Google support page written in Hindi, which outlined instructions for changing a user's Gmail address. At the end of 2025, this documentation had appeared in almost every language except for English. 9to5Google even reported that some users have successfully modified their usernames. It would certainly be strange for Google to roll the feature out only to non-English-speaking regions, so it's likely testing the option elsewhere before making its way to us.

However, users who have been able to make the change were shown an explainer page with some disappointing caveats. It appears that Google isn't letting you replace your old Gmail address entirely. Your new address will become the primary login for your account, and mail sent to it will arrive in your inbox, but anything sent to the old address will still be forwarded to you. If you were hoping a new email address would nip spam in the bud or prevent certain people from contacting you, that does not appear to be the case.

The non-English support pages state that Google is "gradually" rolling the feature out, according to Google Translate. Given that the option to change their Gmail address is already live for some users, it could make its way to everyone in early 2026. On the other hand, Google sometimes rolls out big changes at a glacial pace: Gmail itself was officially in beta until 2009, five years after its public launch. So there's every chance we may be waiting a while.

As noted above, it does not look like users will be able to fully replace their existing Gmail addresses. Instead, adding a new address will simply make the original one into a secondary alias, still capable of receiving mail. This option will not stem the tide of spam, in other words, nor will it reduce security concerns for those who have stalkers or have had their Gmail address leaked in data breaches. So, what options do users facing those issues have?

Unfortunately, short of blocking individual email addresses and tightening up your account security by using passkeys instead of passwords on your Google account and enabling two-factor authentication, you may need to bite the bullet and start a fresh Google account. You can't merge the two accounts, but you can import data from the old account, in some cases directly and in others by downloading and re-uploading files. It's a hassle, but it's the only way to fully ditch your problematic Gmail address.

Going forward, you can prevent your email from leaking by switching to a service like Proton Mail or other alternatives that allow you to create disposable email addresses known as aliases. If an alias is leaked, you can simply delete it and move on with your life. You can even use an alias to set up your new Google account. It's not clear why Google is not offering the option to erase your current Gmail address as a part of this rollout. If such a thing is technically feasible, here's hoping we see it in the future.