And e-mail address it can become a personal brand, but also a burden. Google he knows this well and, after years of absolute rigidity, he has decided to loosen one of his most iconic rules digital ecosystem: the “permanence” of Gmail addresses. The online search giant has in fact started the distribution of a new feature that will allow users to modify their own address @gmail.com without creating a new account. An update long overdue, especially by those who still use contact details created many years ago and which today are not compatible with professional or institutional use.
Curiously, Google did not accompany the news with an official statement. It was intercepted by CNBC, which identified the new indications in the Hindi version of Google’s support page. A clue that suggests a start of the rollout in India or in Hindi-speaking markets, with a subsequent gradual extension globally.
According to the new guidelines, users will be able to replace their existing Gmail address with a new one while keeping all data intact: emails, messages, photos, documents and history will remain unchanged. But above all, services and integrations will not be touched, from Drive to Maps to YouTube, one of the most delicate aspects of the Google system. The old address will not be lost, but will automatically become a alias: emails sent to the original address will continue to arrive in the same inbox and access to Google services will remain possible even with the historical address. A change that radically simplifies life for users. Previously, anyone wanting a new Gmail address was forced to create an account from scratch and manually transfer data, which was a long, complex and often risky process for integrations with third-party apps.
However, there is no shortage ofsome limitations: anyone who changes their address will not be able to create a new one for the following 12 months and will not be able to delete the chosen address. A measure that seems designed to avoid abuse and an excessively “fluid” use of digital identities. For now, the English support page continues to carry the old wording that @gmail.com addresses “usually cannot be changed.” But now even for the Mountain View giant, in the era of digital flexibility, nothing is truly permanent anymore.
