Gmail might be the most popular email service in the world, with millions of consumers and companies relying on it to communicate with others. But if Gmail is no longer working for you — maybe you’re not impressed by its features and you want a different email app, or maybe you’re looking to limit Google’s reach into your digital life — deleting your Gmail account is the only way to make a change.
Actually deleting a Gmail account isn’t as simple as finding a single menu and ditching all of your data. Instead, you’ll need to click your way around Google’s service and navigate several menus to find the ultimate delete option. It’s not necessarily a heavy haul, and some services make you jump through more hurdles, but there are several steps you’ll need to follow to get rid of Gmail.
The following steps will guide you through the process of saying goodbye to Google’s email service once and for all.
There are plenty of steps just to delete Gmail, but it’s a surprisingly quick process. Often, when you try to delete an account, companies ask you several times whether you really want to delete an account. Sometimes, they even force you to log in several times. Gmail makes the process a clicky one, but at least it’s zippy.
- Open your default browser, and go to Gmail.
- Click Sign In at the top of the page.
- Input your Gmail credentials.
- Click on your picture on the top right of the screen.
- Click Google Account.
- Click Data & Personalization in the left sidebar.
- Scroll down to Download, delete, or make a plan for your data, and choose the option to “Delete a service or your account.”
- Click Delete your account under the box that says Delete your Google Account.
- Enter your password.
- Scroll down to the legal disclaimers. You’ll need to click the boxes that acknowledge that you might incur charges related to an AdWords account and that you might not get paid if you have a Google AdSense account. You’ll also need to acknowledge that you want to delete your account and its data.
- Click Delete Account.
Credit: Google