Most of us today have multiple email addresses that we use for different purposes. Thanks to Gmail’s handy ‘Single Sign-on’ feature, we can access all our accounts on the web at once. However, we are also aware that it is not the easiest task to deal with so many different accounts in one window and sometimes things can get messy in the process.
Not only that, when you use multiple Gmail accounts in a single browser window, there are times when you cannot access certain Google products such as YouTube, Google Drive, and Google+ as the currently in use email is not the default. for that session. The default email id when accessing multiple Gmail accounts is the first email id used to log into the email provider. So, depending on the task at hand, you may need to change the Gmail account.
Steps to Change Default Gmail Account
Let’s say I’m logged into two different Gmail accounts and I want to monitor access to an unsaved calendar event in the default email account. So, to change the default account we have to follow the steps mentioned below:
1. Go to: mail.gmail.com/mail To access your Gmail inbox It is not necessary to have the default account open in the browser to change to another.
2. After opening the inbox, Click on your profile picture in the top right To see all your logged in accounts and currently the default one in the dropdown.
3. From the drop-down menu, click the ‘exit’ button to sign out of all linked accounts at once, not just the default. This step is the most necessary step to change the default Gmail account. As you can see in the attached screenshot, currently the default email id is [email protected].
4. Since you are logged in with multiple Gmail accounts, you will now be directed to the “Select Account” window. Here is what you need to do now click the email address you want to set as default and enter the password input to your Gmail account.
5. This email address is now your default Gmail account and can be confirmed by logging into another account. By default, all your linked apps and services such as YouTube, Calendar, and Drive, among others, will be based on the data in this email ID. As seen in the attached screenshot, the default Gmail account has been changed to [email protected].
6. You can add another Gmail account to your browser by pressing the “Add Account” button from the drop-down menu and See a (default) label next to the email address you first used to sign in.
SEE ALSO: 12 Cool Gmail Tricks You Didn’t Know About
With the ability to switch between default accounts, you no longer have to worry about logging into a different Gmail account in a separate browser to access certain functions. The single sign-on feature has simplified the process to some extent, but you can log out and change the default account using the steps described above to complete the task at hand. Let us know if this is a useful trick you plan to adopt in the comments below.
