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Have you found yourself rapidly accumulating Gmail accounts? Between work, school, and any personal or spam accounts you may have created, it’s completely reasonable to have three (or more) Google accounts that need to be checked regularly.
It can be annoying (not to mention time-consuming) to log in and out of each of your accounts every time you want to use them. Luckily, Google makes it easy to log in to multiple Gmail accounts at once and quickly switch between them on your phone and computer. Here’s how to make use of Google’s multiple sign-in feature.
On your computer
Navigate to Google and sign in
First, navigate to the Google homepage. If you’re already signed in to your first account, you can skip down to the next section. If not, in the upper right corner of the screen, press the blue Sign In button. You can either choose an account you’ve previously logged in with and re-enter the password, or enter all the relevant information for another account. Once you’re signed in to that first account, you’ll be brought back to the homepage.
Adding additional accounts
Once you’re logged in, you should see your profile picture (or your initials if you haven’t added a photo yet) in the upper-right corner. Click it. A drop-down menu will appear directly below it. Next, click Add Account. Sign in to the next account and repeat this process for however many Google accounts you have (up to 10). To switch between your signed-in accounts, press your photo again. Each additional account will show up as an option in this menu now. Click whichever one you wish to use and a new tab or window will open with that account signed into.
You may notice that one of your accounts (like the first one you signed in with) will have a (default) tag next to it now. Whichever account is set to default will be the account that is automatically logged into when you first access a Google app. There is currently no easy way to change your default account once you’ve signed in to them all, except by logging out of all of your accounts and signing in with the one you want first.
On your iPhone or Android phone
Download the Gmail app and sign in
While you can check your email on a single account through the mobile version of Gmail, you’ll need to download the app if you want to log in to multiple accounts at once. Once you’ve downloaded and opened the Gmail app, you’ll be presented with a white envelope and prompted to sign in. Enter your email and password or toggle the accounts that you’ve previously logged in with. Press Add account to sign in to another account. When adding a new account, press Google at the top of the resulting page and enter your information when asked. It will sign in using Google, which will also sign you into any Google services in your apps, as well as Safari.
Adding more accounts
To add an additional account to your Gmail app, press the menu button (represented as three vertical lines in the upper left). Next, tap the account that’s signed into at the top of this menu, and click Manage accounts from the resulting menu. Toggle whichever accounts you would like to see in the app, or add another one from the Add account button. You will only be able to see mail from one account at a time. To switch between the accounts you’ve added, press the menu button again and either tap the picture of the account you want to use to automatically switch to that account, or tap the email currently logged into, and select the next email you’d like to check from the drop-down menu. And that’s it!
To help differentiate your accounts once they are all signed in, make sure to check out our guide to adding a signature to your Gmail account.
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