I’ve gotten a couple of variations on this question recently:
I’ve been invited to use a Google Group, but I want to use a different email address than the one used to invite me. Can I change my email address in my Google Group profile? Or add a different address?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is that the way you accomplish this depends on the way your addresses are viewed by Google.
This post should help those of you with more than one email address. Especially since you probably have a darned good reason for having multiple email addresses (to filter specific types of email to specific accounts, for instance), and right now Google seems to be messing you up.
There are two scenarios that could give rise to this situation.
Scenario 1: You just want to add another email address to your existing Google account
You can add an alternate email address to your Google account (here are Google’s help pages for alternate email addresses), and then choose which of those emails to use for your Google Group stuff. Here are the steps to follow:
- When logged into any Google service (gmail, Groups, Blogger, Reader, Calendar, etc.) look in the top right corner of your screen. Click the link that says “My Account.” It might also be in a drop-down labeled “Settings.”
- Under Personal Settings (right column) of the Google Account page, you’ll see your email address. Click the small blue link below it that says “Edit.”
- On this page, you can enter an additional email address (it won’t replace your existing email address) to use with this Google Account. You could also change your address, but I’d recommend keeping the same main address and adding an alternate address as saner in the long run.
- Google will send a verification message to this alternate email address, containing a link you must click.
- After you’ve clicked the link, you should be able to log into any Google Group, click “Edit my membership,” and choose from a drop-down menu containing your verified email addresses to use for all notifications etc. for that group. Don’t forget to click “Save these settings.”
That should do it for most people.
Scenario 2: You have more than one Google account
You’ll know you fall into this category if you followed the Scenario 1 steps, but got stopped at Step 3 by Google telling you that you can’t use the additional email address because it’s already associated with a Google account.
This also happens if you try to use a gmail address as an alternate email address — because a gmail account is automatically a separate Google account. Gah!
Most people don’t need more than one Google account, but it’s quite easy to get there by accident. I’m actually one of those myself — I have an “old” Google account that I used to create blogs on Blogger long ago, and then somehow I ended up setting up a totally new one so I could use gmail. So if that’s what happened to you, rest assured, you’re not alone.
Google does not provide a way to merge two Google accounts. Here’s their official help page saying there’s no way to merge accounts.
So you can either choose to use the invited address for your Google Group (see Google’s help topic on using multiple Google accounts simultaneously), or you can join the group again with your preferred Google account (this might involve asking the Group administrator to re-invite or re-add you with a different address, if it’s an invitation-only Group).
Hope this helps!
Google is huge and mighty and sometimes quite confusing. Got more Google questions? Leave a comment here, and I’ll see if I can point you in the right direction!



