Impact on Google apps when changing a user's email address

As a Google Workspace administrator, when you change a user's email address, the new address is shown across Google Workspace apps in different ways.

These changes can apply when you...

• Change a user’s profile name
• Change a user's email address
• Give a user an additional "email alias" address (sales@)

Impact of an address change by app

Autocomplete

After you change an address, the effect on autocomplete within your organization depends on whether you keep the old email address as an alias:

• If you kept the old address as an email alias—Other users see both the old and new email addresses as autocomplete options. For example, another user sees both addresses when choosing the recipient for a new Gmail message.
• If you didn’t keep the old address as an email alias—Unless other users saved the old address in their Contacts or Other contacts, users won't see the old address as an autocomplete option. For more information, go to Google Contacts later on this page.

Calendar

Events that you create before you change a user’s email display the old email. Existing events and events that you create after you change the user’s email, display the new email. The same behavior applies if you change the user's primary domain, secondary domain, or resource calendars.

When you change a group’s email, the old email is always displayed for the event.

Changes to profile names are updated across Calendar events.

Chrome OS

When you change a user’s profile name or email address, users get a new Profile. Once they receive a new Profile, users lose both access to their old Profile and to any information saved there. For details on how to upload files and folders to Google Drive, go to Upload files & folders to Google Drive.

For more information about Profiles, go to Use Chrome with multiple profiles.

Classroom

After changing the email address:

• Teachers and Administrators—Class ownerships remain the same, and the new address replaces the old one anywhere it was previously displayed. The teacher or administrator continues to own their documents with the new email address. 
• Students—Class memberships remain the same. The student continues to own their documents with the new email address. 
   

Note: In previous documents with a name in the title, the title is not updated to include the new name.

Drive

After changing the email address:

• Documents and shared drives you created transfer to the new email address.
• If you kept the old email address as an email alias, previously shared items list the users’ old address. Otherwise, if the old address is no longer valid, the new address is shown.
• The user's permissions on shared documents remain the same. 

Gmail

After changing the email address:

• To ensure continuous email delivery after an email change, Google Workspace keeps the old email address as an email alias for the user. To reuse the old address, you first need to remove the email alias.
• The user keeps access to all email received under the previous email address.
• The user doesn't receive any returned read receipts for messages sent from the old email address.
• The user might receive the error message "The "From" address is invalid. Please choose a valid one." If this happens, have the user sign out of their Google Account, then sign back in with their new email address.

Google Chat

Google Chat

After changing the email address:

• Old chat data won't be deleted.
• Other users who previously chatted with the user see the new email address in their chat lists and can continue to chat with them. 
• Other users no longer see the old address, but can still find it using autocomplete. If they invite the old name to chat, the user is still added to the chat, but under the new email address.
• Other users can still search Chat with the old email address; however, the results show the chat history with the new name.

Google Contacts

When you change a user’s profile name or email address, profile names in your organization’s Directory are updated immediately. If you removed the old address, the email address is also updated immediately. Otherwise the address updates within 2–3 days.

Google Groups

The address change is updated in all groups the user is a member of. The update includes groups belonging to another domain or Admin console.

Google Play Developer account

If you  change an email to a new domain, the Google Play Developer account associated with the old user account name is orphaned.

Google Voice

After the change, the user's Google Voice number and voice history is associated with the new email address.

Google Workspace Marketplace and App Engine apps

Mobile devices, sync tools, & IMAP connections

After changing the email address, access to Google Workspace should continue as long as the client lets you update the sign-in for the account.

Vault

After the update, you need to re-create any searches or retention policies based on filters of the form "from:user@old_domain" or "to:user@old_domain."

Related topics

• Change a user’s profile name
• Changing a Directory user's name or email address
• Add or delete an alternative email address (email alias)