I’m currently on a big mission to sort my online life out.
I’m simplifying as much as I can. Shutting down sites, consolidating email accounts, deleting old social media guff I never use.
One thing I have been putting off is the Great Google Nightmare.
Here’s the thing: I’ve been using Gmail since it launched as an invite only service a decade ago. My email address, briggs.dave@gmail.com has been a trusty ally over that time. It’s never let me down. I, on the other hand, have strayed.
I didn’t stray far, to be fair. Instead, when I decided I needed an email address for my work, using my own domain name, I chose Google’s service. This is all fine and dandy, except that with Google’s email service comes a Google account. Just like my trusty Gmail account. Only different. I now have two.
I want to get rid of the Google email on my kindofdigital.com domain. Sorting out the email is the easy bit, set up a forward here, some filters and labels there, and I’m done.
But what about all the documents in the dave@kindofdigital.com Google account? The Google+ profile registered to dave@kindofdigital.com? All the apps and services I use that are tied to dave@kindofdigital.com? Apps I have purchased through the Play store with dave@kindofdigital.com?
Even my browser set up is tied to dave@kindofdigital.com and I am struggling to see how I can easily transfer this to my vanilla Gmail account.
I’m sure I will get this all sorted over time, with a bit of irritation and some foot stamping, no doubt. But here’s the moral:
Always use a vanilla Gmail account as your main Google identity. Don’t be tempted to use anything else.
Seriously. Save yourself a load of hassle.
This is very good advice! I have a google account (loosely) tied to my work email, along with a separate, personal google account. I wish I had never tied the emails together; it’s caused no end of trouble (and, as you say, extracting it is nigh-on impossible). If you manage to make progress I would be really interested in your method.
There is no method, Ady. Different workarounds for pretty much every service.
Interestingly, the vanilla Google service is very good – much better than the apps experience.
I feel your pain. I have a few different Google accounts (personal, band, work) and would have done things a bit different if I were to start again. When trying to consolidate accounts a few months ago I inadvertently ended up deleting one of my main YouTube channels! (I did manage to get it back eventually)
It’s a nightmare and Google don’t make it easy. Forcing a Google account to be intrinsically linked to Gmail and Google+ doesn’t help.
That final point is exactly it! Google seems to want people to have an email address for life!