Blogs on Gmail and Google Accounts

A few days ago, a peer of mine in the Gmail and Google Accounts help communities, shared with me a link to a thread where a user happened to mention seeing the Update category label in his messages even after he has deselected the categories in his default Gmail layout from the  Inbox tab under Gmail settings . The user also included screenshots which looked like the ones below: Given how most of our Gmail is set up, this appeared odd. The categories are not labels; so, how could they appear as such? Since the categories appeared as labels, it was apparent that the reason for this uncommon behavior should lie inside the Labels tab under Gmail settings . In there, scrolling down below the System labels section, under Categories, it appeared as seen below, and the highlighted section resolved the mystery. The click to show/hide in message list options, set to show, caused this unusual display of categories as labels in the user's inbox. When I cli...

We often receive questions in the Gmail Help Community on the consequences of deleting or how to delete the Gmail address from Google account for various reasons. Deleting a Gmail address from your account is very different from deleting your Google account as the first option only deletes the Gmail service from the Google account while the second option deletes the entire Google account (all included services such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Photos, Maps, etc.) The blog post - Google Accounts - how they work  explains the concept of a Google Account in greater detail. The steps to delete a Google service and specifically Gmail, are described in the following Google help articles. Be sure to read them for your better understanding of the issue. Remove Products Delete your Gmail service  (specific to Gmail and containing details of what happens when you delete your Gmail service) The intent behind writing this blog is to include the necessary screenshots so that you...

Quite often, we see a different name while hovering over our name in our Gmail inbox, or our recipients may see a different senders name for us that is not easily traceable. It may happen for various reasons such as: The name on the Google account. The name entered in Gmail's "Send mail as:" option. The name your own email address is listed as under Contacts. The name entered under Accounts Settings in an email client or non-Gmail mobile app used by you. This blog goes through all the scenarios mentioned above and displays how it impacts the name on the sent messages in the recipient's inbox and where to check in case you are troubled by this issue. The name on the Google account. The name on your Google account can be changed from either of the following URLs: https://myaccount.google.com/name https://myaccount.google.com/profile/name When you click on the first link, you will be taken to the page as shown in the following screenshot after a passwor...