Google to Roll Out Email Change Feature

by Rian

I won’t name names, but there are services that do not let a user change the email address. It’s a hilarious oversight in systems, as two entirely different people may have similar email addresses. I was once given an email address of that is ridiculous short initials with illegible numbers attached. Soon as the organization shifted to Gmail, I had to set up an alias right away, otherwise it was not useable in any shape or form.

Before these services can even play catch up, Google seems to be the first one to play balls in 2026. Google’s upcoming feature on the Gmail front is unceremoniously announced: a support document suggesting the potential address change feature. According to the translated document (original in Hindi), the old address is kept as an alias for the new email address. This has been my standard practice for managing multiple Gmail accounts as well — make a new one and set auto-forward to the new account.

The support document does not mention anything of merging feature, or for users who have already created a new account. However, seeing as this is a feature requested not only on the side of Google, but on Apple has well, it can’t be a better time for the tech giants to come up with a new norm how the email addresses will be managed: not just for the users, but for the email service providers, service providers based on basic email features, and so on.

It is really the question of who is behind the username, and whether or not that username will be used outside of a system. Emails aren’t limited to system to system basis. I frequently give out my email address as a contact, and majority of the apps and services I sign up for ask for an email address that is reachable. It would be ridiculous if someone hands me a 13 digits long number and tells me to repeatedly use it to sign up for things.