Why YSK: A Google account is not the same as a Gmail account, and you don’t need to create a new Gmail email account to have a Google account.

I’ve spoken to many different people who equate a Google account to a Gmail account. This is not the case. Unfortunately, this leads to many new Gmail accounts being created, solely because they think that they need to have a Gmail in order to access other Google services.

Here’s the gist:

A Google account gives you access to Google services like Sheets, Docs, Calendar, Drive, Photos, Gmail, YouTube, etc.

A Gmail account is an email service account with Google. When you create a Gmail, you also create a Google account by default.

However, the reverse is not true. If you create a Google account (with a non-Gmail email address), it does not automatically give you a Gmail account.

If you already have an email account with another provider, you can use that as your Google account.

For example: Let’s say your email is jane@example.com. Rather than creating jane@gmail.com, you can opt to create a Google account with jane@example.com and avoid creating an account for Gmail.

Unfortunately, Google tries to get you to create a Gmail account during the process of creating a Google account. (see image).

It’s important to differentiate this and prevent people from registering new Gmail accounts unnecessarily.

  • @[email protected]
    1•6 months ago

    Can we use Google email service with a custom domain email? As far as I am aware, it requires some Google service suite.

    Also, what happens when you lose access to the custom domain? Do they verify the domain ownership periodically, or do you just own it?"

    • atocci
      3•6 months ago

      It’s totally possible to do without the suite! With my free Gmail account and my domain registered through cloudflare, I have a custom email address for just the cost of the domain. I have the custom email set as an alias in Gmail, and Cloudflare does routing.