Skip to main content

How to delete your Gmail account (and what you need to know)

The top corner of Gmail on a laptop screen.
Stephen Phillips / Unsplash

Is it time to part ways with your Gmail account? Whether you’re moving onto greener email pastures, or you want to start fresh with a new Gmail address, deleting your old Gmail account is something anyone can do. Of course, we’re not just going to bid you farewell without a guide all our own. If you need to delete your Gmail account, we hope these step-by-step instructions will make the process even easier.

Recommended Videos

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

  • A Gmail account

  • Access to a PC or mobile device

How to delete your Gmail account

You can head to your Google account any time by navigating to your profile picture on Gmail and selecting Manage your Google Account. Or you can get to your account immediately by following this handy link. If you aren’t currently signed in, you will need to sign in to your Google Account.

Step 1: Once on your Google account, look at the left-hand menu and select Data and personalization. This is the section that controls privacy, data storage, and many important settings, including the ability to delete your Gmail account.

The Data and Personalization option for Gmail on a web browser.
screenshot / Digital Trends

Step 2: Scroll down until you find the section that says Download, delete, or make a plan for your data. Here you will want to select the option that says Delete a service or your account. Here is where you can delete anything you’ve signed up for with Google, including your Gmail account.

The Delete a Google Service page.
screenshot / Digital Trends

Step 3: On the following screen, select Delete a Google service to proceed — you can also choose to delete your entire Google account here, but this isn’t necessary if you just want to get rid of Gmail. You can also choose what to do with your data if you are thinking about not using your Google Account anymore, preparing for what happens if you die, and so on.

At this point, Google will ask you to log in again with your account password, so be prepared for providing that data.

At this point, you can choose to download valuable data to save it after you delete your account, which may be a good idea if you have important Gmail conversations.

An account management screen for Google services.
screenshot / Digital Trends

Step 4: Now you’ll see all the Google services that you currently have active. Look for Gmail, and select the trash can icon to begin the process of deleting it.

Google will now require you to enter a new email address for your Google account login options. This new email address cannot be a Gmail address. If you haven’t already set up a new email account elsewhere…this is the time to do it. If you’ve already entered a secondary email address for your Google account, Google will automatically select this email to use instead.

Google will now send you a confirmation email at that address. Wait until you receive, then open the email and click the link to permanently delete your Gmail account. Google will give you a last warning before you complete the process — and then you’re done!

Step 5: Remember, you can make more detailed plans for your account inactivity by going to Delete a service or your account and choosing Make a plan for your account. This can help you if you decide to stop using Google or are unable to, but it’s also a good way to generally control your data and choose if you want to share it with anyone in case of an emergency. You can also use these tools to set your Google account to automatically delete itself if it isn’t used for a certain period of time.

If you’ve saved emails from Gmail for offline use or use Gmail offline in any way, then your browser has probably saved some problematic info. To avoid these problems, delete your browser cache and clear the cookies in your browser to make sure any data stored from your Gmail is gone.

Remember that if you have Gmail linked to an email app on your phone or other device, you will also need to switch it to a new email address and service.

A note on deleting an email address

If you’ve been using your email for a long time, remember that you have probably used it to register for services and sign into everything from bill pay features to one-hit-wonder apps that you no longer use. When you get rid of your Gmail account, you will no longer receive updates or reminders from any of these accounts. Some accounts may no longer function if they cannot find a responsive email address, which means you may have to change your account info or create a new account. In other words, get ready for some cleanup work after your old email is gone.

Brie Barbee
Former Staff Writer
Brie is a writer from Portland, Oregon. She received a bachelor's degree from Portland State University in 2016, where she…
Careful — this Google ad could swipe your bank data without you knowing
Zoomed in version of Homebrew website.

Using Google ads to push their malicious sites to the top of the results page is a trick cybercriminals use all too often. The latest example is a fake Homebrew website that uses an infostealer to swipe personal data, browser history, login information, and bank data from unsuspecting victims.

Spotted by Ryan Chenkie on X and reported by BleepingComputer, the malicious Google ad even displays the correct Homebrew URL "brew.sh," so there's no real way to spot the trick before clicking.

Read more
Everything you need to know about AI agents and what they can do
a hollow man under light

The agentic era of artificial intelligence has arrived. AI agents are capable of operating independently and without continuous, direct oversight, while collaborating with users to automate monotonous tasks. Based on the same large language models that drive popular chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, agentic AIs differ in that they use LLMs to take action on a user's behalf rather than generate content.

In this guide, you'll find everything you need to know about how AI agents are designed, what they can do, what they're capable of, and whether they can be trusted to act on your behalf.
What is an agentic AI?
Billed as "the next big thing in AI research," agentic AI is a type of generative AI model that can act autonomously, make decisions, and take actions towards complex goals without direct human intervention. These systems are able to interpret changing conditions in real-time and react accordingly, rather than rotely following predefined rules or instructions.

Read more
Will a VPN work on the TikTok ban? Here’s everything you need to know
TikTok logo on an iPhone.

TikTok is one of the most popular apps on the planet, and unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard by now that it's likely going to get banned in the United States. For the roughly 170 million monthly TikTok users in the US, the potential ban is disappointing news, to say the least. We're happy to report that there's still hope, though. If you already have the app on your phone, you can actually bypass the ban somewhat quite easily. In fact, the main way to do it is through the use of a VPN, and given how common VPNs are these days, you may already have a paid VPN subscription that you could potentially utilize. It's also worth noting that while free VPN options exist, they may not work as well as paid VPNs, especially when it comes to country choices and speeds.

But let's backtrack a bit - you’ve probably heard of virtual private networks before, what exactly do they do? In short, a VPN helps you protect your privacy by disguising your location, allowing you to change your apparent location and view websites in other countries as if you were a resident.

Read more