How to leave Gmail

This is a text automatically translated from Italian. If you appreciate our work and if you like reading it in your language, consider a donation to allow us to continue doing it and improving it.

We continue the guides on how to walk away from a product, after having told you about it how to leave Google Photos and from Google Drive, today is the turn of how to go away from Gmail. We believe an article like this is needed because too many things are taken for granted. For some, however, changing your email address, perhaps after 10 years, can be a real trauma.

For example, one of the phrases we hear most often is “It's impossible to get away from Gmail, they all have that address of mine“. How to respond to someone who tells us a similar phrase? Gmail in fact it has existed since 2004 and, even if at the beginning it was by invitation only ¹, there are many people who have been using it as their main email address for more than ten years. As in all things, however, the rule is always the same: the sooner you start, the sooner you finish, the longer you wait, the more work there will be to do.

In fact, for security and privacy reasons, there cannot be a button that allows you to move everything with a single click.
However, we'll let you in on a secret (no, it's not really a secret): the author of this article has used Gmail for almost 15 years. In fact, I was among the first to have it in Italy when it was still by invitation only. I've used it as my primary email for more than a decade signing up almost everywhere. So believe me when I tell you that I understand you and I know the problem.

How to leave Gmail

Let's see then how to leave Gmail without trauma to anyone. In fact, remember that others don't care much about your email address. The wonder of email is that it uses a standard protocol where anyone can use the program they want regardless of the provider they choose. This is how messaging should be too (and somehow it is working to this), for example the open protocol exists XMPP or the most recent and modern protocol Matrix.

This is how the internet was thought before the arrival of Big Tech: interoperable open protocols. Think how wonderful it would be if each of us could use any application to talk to each other via chat without being tied to one or another company. It would be possible precisely with the Matrix protocol and applications such as Element, unfortunately little used to date.

Let's get back to us and ours Gmail. We were saying that no one cares if you change your email. Unlike messaging applications (“but why, are you not on WhatsApp?“) our experience suggests that when you change emails no one will care much. People will only have to update their address book, which often updates automatically anyway.

Alternatives to Gmail

The first thing to do is obviously to choose an alternative to Gmail. For this we refer you to our complete article. Always keep one thing in mind: if you choose again to have an email with a non-personalized domain, in a few years you could get the same one again problem. Let's explain better: the ideal would be to have a custom domain (like @surname.it) with which you can then go wherever you want. Almost all the alternatives we propose allow this and we are considering writing a guide on this very topic.

However, if you are not capable or do not want to, remember that you will be tied to the new address as much as you remained tied to Gmail. This isn't necessarily a problem if you trust your new provider. It's just important that you know.

After have chosen your alternative the process you can do for get away from Gmail and make sure you don't miss anything is as follows:

• 1. Redirect all emails to your new domain. It's a very simple operation. Enter your box Gmail. Press the gear wheel at the top and then go to View all settings. Then go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, or more simply click here. Now you can press on “Forward a copy of your incoming mail to” and add your new email address. You can also decide what happens to the email after forwarding it to your new address: it remains on Gmail or is permanently deleted?
  This first step is fundamental: from now on you will not lose any emails and they will all be forwarded to your email address.

• 1.1 optional. If your provider allows you to create filters and labels (generally it is possible) our advice is to put a label on these emails that will arrive to you so that you can recognize them immediately and then possibly update your profile.

• 1.2 optional. By going to the “General” tab, that is here, at the bottom you will find the Automatic answerer. It is an automatic message that is sent to anyone who writes to you. If you think this is the case, activate it and write what you are doing. You could say that you receive the email anyway because you forwarded it but advise those who wrote to you to update their address book. If you also want to do proselytism linked also our article on alternatives to Gmail 😁

• 2. Now it's time to update all the sites you signed up for with your old email address. It's up to you to decide how to do it and how long it takes. Remember: you are not in a hurry because all the emails will arrive at the new address.
  If you have a password manager you could start logging in on all the sites, look in the profile and update it with the new email address. Alternatively you can wait for that site to serve you and when you log in then go and check if you still have the old email address in your profile.
  From personal experience: on all sites, even government ones, it is possible to change the associated email address very easily. Even those who use it as a username, it will simply change your username. Always the only one from experience problem I had it with the bank: I had to physically go to the branch to update my profile with the new email address. It was therefore not a real problem but only a necessary recognition for a safety issue.

How to leave Gmail

That's it, finished. It's not complex, it's just a little boring. But if you are convinced of what you are doing it's definitely worth it.

There are other considerations to make, of course. You want also carry all your emails with you or you want to leave them in Gmail as an archive? In the second case you are done here.
However, if you also want to carry all your emails with you, it always depends on the provider you are going to.

Import emails or leave them all in Gmail?

For example ProtonMail, in its Premium version, allows you to import them all. Also Posteo has a guide to do it as well as Infomaniak. We neither advise nor advise you against doing so: it is your choice. Our advice however is to Never delete your Gmail account at all. Gmail fortunately it does not allow email recycling, which means that no one else could get hold of your email address ².

However, if you forgot to update a service to which you were subscribed, you are literally screwed if you delete your account forever. For this reason our advice is to leave the email inbox dormant, there are no major privacy or security problems in this. The times you need to access it, use a Browsers safe as a new profile of Brave dedicated or Firefox well set and with his containers.

For this reason you might also think of leave it as an archive and to start, literally, one new digital life at least as far as emails are concerned.

Changing your email address: it can be done!

As we have seen, therefore, it is not an impossible nor particularly complex operation to do. Certain it can be boring if you have been with Google for 10/15 years. But the longer you wait, the more boring it will be to do. However, when you finish, we think you will feel much better. You will have reasonable assurance that your purchases, your travels, your passions and everything you receive via email is truly yours and is not a bargaining chip.

Our thought is that even if you decide to go for an unencrypted email (such as Posteo or Mailboxes even if the latter also allows you to have it encrypted) you are still putting yourself in the hands of companies who don't live off advertising. In fact, let's remember that Gmail until 2017 used your emails to carry out advertising profiling ³ Why Google it is, in fact, an advertising agency. Today they say they don't do it anymore. But as we know, everything is closed source and who can assure us that in the future they won't find it profitable to analyze emails again?

Hopefully the article how to leave Gmail you enjoyed it and it may have helped someone. As always you can tell us what you think about it Telegram, Matrix or up Feddit.

1. Gmail on Wikipedia[↩]
2. How can I reuse an old gmail username?[↩]
3. Google will stop scanning your Gmail messages to sell targeted ads[↩]

Join communities