How to Delete Your Gmail Account

You can delete a single Gmail address without nuking your whole Google account — useful for an old or secondary inbox. Removing just Gmail keeps your Google account (Drive, Photos, YouTube) alive under a different login email.

What Gmail keeps after deletion

  • Emails you sent remain in recipients' inboxes.
  • Data in other Google services (Drive, Photos, YouTube) stays unless you delete the whole account.
  • Backups retained for a short period after deletion completes.

Steps to delete your Gmail account

  1. Export your mail first. Use Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) to download your Gmail before you delete anything — this is irreversible.
  2. Open Delete a Google service. Go to myaccount.google.com → Data & privacy → 'Delete a Google service' (or visit myaccount.google.com/deleteservices).
  3. Delete just Gmail. Find Gmail in the list and click the trash icon. You'll be asked to provide a different email address to sign in with going forward.
  4. Confirm via the verification link. Google emails the new address — click the link to finish removing the Gmail service.

Gotchas to watch for

  • To delete the entire Google account instead, use myaccount.google.com/deleteaccount.
  • If the address is used for sign-in elsewhere, switch those logins to another email first or you'll be locked out.