Change Gmail Default Email: Setting a New Primary Address

I recently had an issue where I added a “test” Gmail account to my existing account, and for some reason this test account became my default sending address. It took a bit of digging to sort out, so I’m posting the fix here as much for my own future reference as anyone else’s.

There are actually two different scenarios that get confused with each other, so it’s worth being clear on which one applies to you before you start.

Scenario 1: You just want to change which address sends by default

If you have multiple “Send mail as” addresses configured on one Gmail account and simply want a different one to be selected by default when composing a new message, this is controlled entirely in Gmail’s settings and does not require deleting anything:

1. Open Gmail and click the gear icon, then “See all settings”.
2. Go to the “Accounts and Import” tab.
3. Under “Send mail as”, find the address you want as your default and click “make default” next to it.

Gmail will now use that address by default on new messages (replies still default to whichever address received the original message).

Scenario 2: You want to remove the address entirely

This is what I actually needed — not just to change the default, but to remove the test Gmail account association altogether, since my real default is a non-Gmail (@live.co.uk) address.

Before deleting anything, download a copy of your data first in case you need it later:

1. Go to your Google Account.
2. On the left navigation panel, click “Data & personalization”.
3. Under “Download, delete, or make a plan for your data”, click “Delete a service or your account”.
4. Click “Delete a service” (you may need to sign in again).
5. Next to “Gmail”, select Delete and follow the on-screen steps.

Note: if you use the Gmail offline app, you’ll also need to clear your browser’s cache and cookies afterwards for the change to fully take effect.

Feedback

Hopefully this saves someone else the same bit of head-scratching it caused me. Let us know in the comments if you run into any issues with either method.

Resources

• download your data
• Google Account
• Gmail Offline
• clear your browser’s cache and cookies