Since the World Wide Web has taken over the markets, and the virtual world has made the world closer, Google has been a leader since its inception. In about 2004, Google went ahead to give competition to Yahoo for emailing purposes. That was when Gmail as an email portal was launched.
How to Delete / Remove Your Gmail Account
Launch and final release
It was 1st April 2004, when the first Beta version of Gmail was launched. The entire testing finished in 2009 when Google finally felt the product was ready to be released as a larger version.
Today, Gmail is used by almost all individuals and firms for various purposes – be it personal usage or professional purposes, this tool has been a great way of communication. It is a free tool that synchronizes with IMAP or POP protocols and thus, can be easily accessed using third party programs.
When the tool was launched, all of us created accounts. But, there may be instances or situations, where you wish to go ahead and delete the Gmail account totally, or just the Google address that you created. When Google allows you to create a Gmail account hassle-free, the same goes with deletion.
If you wish to go ahead and delete your Gmail account, you can two it with two different methods –
Method 1 – To delete your Gmail account:
Follow the below steps as it is to delete.
- Go to the official website of Gmail – you will have to log in from a browser. You cannot delete your Gmail account from the Google app.
- On the top right corner, you will see an option to sign-in. Once you click on that – you will be directed to a page that will ask you for your login credentials.
- There may be instances, where you browser auto signs you in, in case you have saved your email account and password. In this case, when you open the website, you will not be able to see the sign-in option.
- Now, go to settings < Account preferences.
- At the bottom of this page, you will be able to view an option – Delete your account or services. You will have to click on this option in order to proceed with deleting your Gmail Account.
- Click on ‘delete Google account and data’.
- After clicking on the above option, there may be a chance that Google will prompt you to enter your password once again. Do not panic, as this is only for verification purposes.
- When you type in your password, you will get a warning that reads that all your data and content associated with the account will be deleted.
- It will also state that all other Google products associated with this account, may be affected.
- At that stage, you can review all the other products that are associated.
- You will have an option to download all your data associated with the Gmail account. You can download it before you permanently delete the account.
- Then, check the boxes of acknowledgment – two declaration statements, before you hit the delete option.
- Click on delete account.
Note: If you wish to restore the account, you can do it within a few days of deleting. To do so, you can log in from the same email ID, click on restore account and enter the last password of that account. If you are within a reasonable time frame, you will be able to recover the account.
Method 2 – To delete the Gmail Address only
If in case, you do not want to delete all Google products, but only the Gmail address, follow the below steps to do so.
- Go to the official website of Gmail – you will have to log in from a browser. You cannot delete your Gmail account from the Google app.
- On the top right corner, you will see an option to sign-in. Once you click on that – you will be directed to a page that will ask you for your login credentials.
- There may be instances, where you browser auto signs you in, in case you have saved your email account and password. In this case, when you open the website, you will not be able to see the sign-in option.
- Now, go to settings < Account preferences.
- At the bottom of this page, you will be able to view an option – Delete your account or services. You will have to click on this option in order to proceed with deleting your Gmail Account.
- Click on ‘delete Products’.
- After clicking on the above option, there may be a chance that Google will prompt you to enter your password once again. Do not panic, as this is only for verification purposes.
- You will get a pop up here, that will read that ‘your Google account offers many services. Some of the services can be deleted from your account individually’.
- At this stage, you can also consider downloading all your data associated with the Gmail address.
- At this page, you will be able to view all the products associated with your current Gmail address, and then in this, select the Gmail option only.
- You will be able to view a dust bin symbol beside the Gmail option. Click on that to proceed.
- You will get a pop up at this stage, where it will state that you will need another account to continue using your other products, and you will have to input a backup Email address here.
- This new Email ID will be verified before you can proceed through a verification email.
- Once you verify the alternate email, you can proceed and then your existing Gmail address will get deleted from the systems.
Thank us later, and now, go ahead and follow the steps stated above to either delete ONLY your Gmail address or your complete Google account. Do not forget to check the recovery time frame, in case you would like to recover the deleted account.
