Sometimes, you just want to grow up or make a change right? Surely, I am not the only one has dreamt of this so what do you do? Easy right? You decide what or who you want to be, make the change, and do your best to make sure others are aware of the new you. It should be an easy process, but of course, Google has to make it difficult.
Oh, you didn't know I was talking about email?
When we are younger and make our first email address, it is often something we will regret later. I mean the vast majority of email addresses for younger kids (if it wasn't set up by a parent) includes "420", "69", or some phrasing like "ladiesman". As a kid, these seem hilarious, and we often use these email addresses for years until we realize that it makes us look like jackasses. My first email address used "kid" in the address which obviously was not a great idea when I was no longer a kid so I needed to change it.
However, that was not so difficult when I had my first email address. Back then, it would be as simple as creating a new one, moving all of my accounts over (very few), setting up email forwarding, and then deleting the old one. Hell, with Microsoft, it was even easier because they let you change your account without creating a new one so no email migrating. However, this was before the integrated services era.
Today's email addresses (iCloud, Gmail, Live) are often account ID's; for instance, your gmail address is your Google account which is used for all Google services including Android phones. Switching email addresses now require setting up all of those services with a new account as you already had to do in the past which would mean losing data, emails, preferences, et cetera. Ideally, we could just change our ID without needing to create a new account; Microsoft does just that. You can just change the ID of your account and all of your preferences remain. Sadly, my beloved Google has dropped the ball on something else.
I have recently been using my new Gmail to set up services as well as moving other account contact information over to the new Gmail which is doable, but is a complete pain-in-the-ass. Even worse, Google makes it 10x harder on Google services. For instance, I cannot just change my ID so I had to set up a whole new account with Google which means I would lose all of my books, movies, songs, blog posts, Chrome preference, everything. No big deal if they would allow me to create a new account and then at least merge the two accounts, but I got a big "NOPE" on that one as well. Switching Google accounts is a total pain.
For my movies, books, and music? I had to create a family group to share all of "MY" stuff with myself. Didn't want to lose my photos, stored files on Drive, and Calendar? I had to share those items with myself again. For this blog? I had to add myself as an admin and then remove myself on the other side. I will lose my Google+ posts as well as have to call my bank to authorize Google Pay again which is the least of my worries. I might have been able to overlook all of these things (numerous as they are) if I hadn't gotten to the part of trying to move stored emails that I needed.
In their small defense, Google does allow you to export all of your emails in to an .mbox file for back-up, but guess what? They do not allow the import of .mbox files directly in to Gmail. Their actual advice is to download Thunderbird, import them in to Thunderbird using a signed-in Gmail account and then open Gmail. It did work...except for having to sort through 1600 emails for the second time. Does no one else see a problem with this!?
I love Google, but come on! There has got to be a better way than this. Either let us simply change the account or at least allow us to merge two accounts. Sometimes, we just want a change , and even Microsoft allows this simple request. You are struggling Google... just let us grow up and makes our own decisions.
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