You have two separate Gmail accounts, each with its own email address, contacts, and calendar. After trying to juggle both, you now want to merge them into one single, more manageable account. What are your options?
Google offers no way to merge two or more accounts, but there are workarounds. You can forward emails, import saved emails and contacts, and transfer your calendar appointments between the two accounts. Here’s how to set this up.
Forward Emails
You should first decide which Google account and Gmail address you want to keep as the primary and which one you no longer want to actively use. Gmail accounts can be deleted, but you likely want emails sent to that address to still reach you, and maybe even send out the occasional message from it as well.
Your first step is activating email forwarding. For simplicity, I’ll refer to the account you wish to actively use as your new account and the one you no longer plan to actively use as your old account. Sign into your old Gmail account.
Click the Settings icon in the upper right and select See all settings. At the settings screen, choose the tab for Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Click the Add a forwarding address button and type the address for your new Gmail account in the box. Then click Next.
A window will then pop up asking you to confirm the change. Click the Proceed button and a message tells you that a confirmation code has been sent to the other account to verify permission. Sign into your new Gmail account and open the confirmation email. Click the confirmation link and click the Confirm button at the webpage that appears.
To fully activate email forwarding, you need to decide what Google should do with the forwarded emails in your old account. Under the Forwarding and POP/IMAP section of your old account’s Settings screen, click the Forward a copy of incoming mail button. Open the drop-down menu next to it and select one of the four options: 1) Keep the copy in the inbox; 2) Mark the copy as read; 3) Archive the copy, or 4) Delete the copy.
Choose option 1 or 2 to start. After you know the forwarding is working correctly, you can always return to this menu and select option 3 or 4. When done, click the Save Changes button at the bottom. Now all you have to do is test that email forwarding works.
Send Old Emails
Even after forwarding is set up, you can still send emails from your old account. In your new Gmail account, go to Settings > Accounts and Import. In the section for Send mail as, click the Add another email address link.
In the pop-up window, type your old email address in the field for Email address. Leave the option Treat as an alias checked. Click the button for Next Step. Click the Send Verification button.
Sign into your old Gmail account. Copy the number in the verification email, paste it into the appropriate field in the pop-up window, and then click Verify.
The next time you need to send an email, click the From field and you can choose either your old account or your new account as the sender address.
Import Emails and Contacts
Next, you may want to import all the saved emails and contacts from your old Gmail account to the new one. You can take care of both in one shot by going to Settings > Accounts and Import in your new account. Click the Import mail and contacts link.
In the pop-up window, type the address for your old Gmail account and click Continue. At the next window, click Continue again. At the next window, confirm your old email address and click Next. Sign into your old Gmail account. Click the Allow button to allow the Gmail ShuttleCloud Migration to access the emails and contacts from your old account. Close the current window.
The other window should then present your import options. By default, the process will import your contacts, mail, and new mail for the next 30 days. You can uncheck any of these options. For example, if you’ve already enabled email forwarding, uncheck the option to import new mail for next 30 days. When ready, click the Start import button.
The window tells you that your messages and contacts are being imported but cautions that it may take several hours or even up to two days before you start to see all the imported messages. Click OK.
Your new account generates a label for your imported emails with the name of your old email address so you can easily find them. After the import has completed, review the emails to delete any you no longer need. You can also move or change the label for any imported emails to better integrate them into your new account.
Next, click the Google Apps icon in the upper right and select Contacts to make sure all of your contacts were imported from your old account.
Import Calendar
Finally, you probably want to add the calendar appointments and events from your old account to the new one. To do this, sign into your old account. Click the Google Apps icon and select Calendar. At the calendar screen, click the Settings icon and select Settings.
In the left pane, click the setting for Import & export, then click the Export button. The export is created as an iCalendar ICS file contained in a zip file and downloaded to your computer. Extract the zip file to get to the ICS file.
Go back to your new Google account and open the calendar settings. Click Import & export, then click the Select file from your computer button. Select the exported ICS file and click the Import button.
While the calendar is being imported, the Import button will be grayed out. Wait until the button becomes available again, then check the calendar in your new account to confirm that all the appointments and events have been imported.
