Change a user's email address

This page is for administrators who manage other people's accounts. If you're not an admin, and you need to make these changes for your account, you need to ask an administrator. Who is my administrator?

As an administrator, you can change a user's email address in the Google Admin console. After you make the update, the user must use the new email address to sign in to their Google Account.

To update an email address, you have two options:

Option 1: Change the username (first part of address, user@)

The user will...

  • Start receiving email sent to their new email address
  • Sign in to their account with the new address (the old email address won't work)
  • Continue to get email sent to their old address, which becomes an email alias
  • Continue to access emails, files, and data associated with the old address
  • Email sent to the new email address and the old (alias) address is delivered to the user's same inbox

Important: To give a user an additional address, add an email alias, instead.

Follow these steps

  1. In the Google Admin console, go to Menu and then Directory and thenUsers.

    Requires having the appropriate User management privilege. Without the correct privilege, you won't see all the controls needed to complete these steps.

  2. In the Users list, point to the user and click Rename user at the right, as shown below.

    Or if the list is long, type in the search bar at the very top to find the user's account page. Then at the left of their account page, click Update user. Show me how

  3. Under Primary email, enter the new username.

  4. Click Update user.

Option 2: Change the domain name (second part of address, @yourcompany)

The user will...

  • Start receiving email sent to their new email address
  • Sign in to their account with the new address (the old email address won't work)
  • Continue to get email sent to their old address, which becomes an email alias
  • Continue to access emails, files, and data associated with the old address
  • Email sent to the new email address and the old (alias) address is delivered to the user's same inbox

Important: To give all your users an address at the new domain, see these options, instead.

Follow these steps

Before you begin: Add a domain that you own to your Google Workspace account.

  1. In the Google Admin console, go to Menu and then Directory and thenUsers.

    Requires having the appropriate User management privilege. Without the correct privilege, you won't see all the controls needed to complete these steps.

  2. In the Users list, point to the user and click Rename user at the right, as shown below.

    Or if the list is long, type in the search bar at the very top to find the user's account page. Then at the left of their account page, click Update user. Show me how

  3. Select the email domain you want to move the user to. Next to @, click the Down arrow and select another domain. Note: Only the primary domain or any additional (secondary) domains you added to Google Workspace are available for the email address. You can't use another domain, such as gmail.com.

  4. Click Update user.

Note: If the user's new email address matches an existing Google Account, you might be prompted to resolve the conflict before you can rename the user. Learn more about conflicting accounts.

How to manage the old email address

Other users might still send messages to, or share files with, the old email address. Here are some ways to manage the old email address:

  • Temporarily keep the old address as an email alias. When you change a user's email address, the old address automatically becomes an email alias. When others send an email, they can use either address. The user can set up a Gmail filter to tag messages sent to their old address, then set up an autoreply notifying people of their new address.
  • Create a temporary account. This option allows the user to manage emails sent to the old address.Create a temporary user account for the old email address that forwards messages to the new address.
  • Delete the old email address. With this option, emails and invitations sent to the old address bounce back to the sender, with an alert that the user doesn't exist.

After you change an email address...

  • The user must now sign in to their Google Account with the new email address.

  • The user continues to receive mail sent to the old email address (it becomes an email alias).

    Note: If a user has the maximum number of aliases (30), you can't rename the user. To rename the user, you'll need to remove an email alias.