Change a user's email address

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

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

Example: [e-mail] now wants the address [e-mail].

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. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  DirectoryUsers.
3. In the Users list, find the user. Learn how to find a user account.
4. Point to the user that you want to rename and click Rename user.
   Note: You can also find Update user at the left of the user's account page.

   

5. Under Primary email, enter the new username.
6. Click Update user.

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

Example: You added a domain for a new business to your account, and you want to move a user’s primary address to that business.

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. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  DirectoryUsers.
3. In the Users list, find the user. Learn how to find a user account.
4. Point to the user that you want to update and click Update user.
   Note: You can also find Update user at the left of the user's account page.

   

5. Select the email domain you want to move the user to. Next to @, click the Down arrowand 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.
   
6. 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.

Related topics

• Impact on apps when changing a user's email address
• Change a user's profile name
• Name guidelines for users and groups