Here’s a quick tip on something very simple that I could not figure out for the longest time. One of those bugs that was somehow thought to be a feature at some point in the development process over at Google. Too busy not doing evil, I guess…
The graphic above is very straightforward and familiar to anyone who uses more than one Google account. Easy to add or remove accounts, right? The tricky part is that if you are logged into any of these accounts then you will not see the “remove” button. Instead, it will look like this (with just “add an account”):
Add and Login to Remove?
In other words, to remove an account you have to log out of a different account but it doesn’t tell you which account you are logged into. And to find this page in the first place you have to “Add account” from the top right menu – so you have to add an account and then log out of an account in order to remove an account.
There are many ways to end up on this page I suspect – jumping between Google services such as Adwords or Google Analytics, for example. These are some of the URLs that will bring up the “Choose an account” list:
- https://accounts.google.com/AddSession
- https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin
- https://accounts.google.com/AccountChooser
How to log out? visit accounts.google.com/logout and Google will log you out — then the remove button will be visible.
Some of the keywords I tried to find an answer online:
- How to remove a Google account from your list of accounts on the “Choose an account” page?
- How to remove sessions from Google accounts?
- Google account +remove button missing
More links:
If you have never seen this interface it might be helpful at this point to know that once you can see the “remove” button then it’s very simple: click the “remove” button and ‘x’ any accounts that you want to remove from the list. This will not delete accounts of course, just remove them from the saved list. See the “Choose an account” picture at top.
Thanks for the overwhelmingly positive feedback on this post — seems like it’s been helpful to many people.
Update 11/2015: Setting your default Google account is easy. Simply log out of all your Google accounts. Then, log back in to the account you want as the default first. Any accounts you log in to afterward will be treated as secondary. via osxdaily.com
Update 1/2022: you may get a ‘syncing is paused’ notice when you sign out. if you use the Chrome Browser then you can log into your main google account (if you have a main account) in the browser itself and that will default the user that appears in the list. You can actually sign into mulitple accounts in the browser and use that to control what account appears in the list of accounts.
This list is also called the “Account Chooser” and it can break the AutoFill or AutoComplete of some web browsers/Password Managers.
131 Comments
Thanks Ari. This blog post answered my question fast and clearly.
THANK YOU ARI!! I agree 1Googleplex percent with Mr Matthew!
what a god send…
i thought was going crazy as i couldnt find out how to get rid of some old accounts.
Thanks! Helped a lot and straight to the point for an answer!
Thank u… 🙂
Thank you for this. I spent a solid 20 minutes trying to figure it out. Who decided that was a good design?!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I am frustrated by this for ssssssssssoooooooooo loooooooooonnnnnngggggggg.
Google devs were not too sober when developing this feature.
DH
Boy isn’t it easy when it’s easy – but not a second before! Thanks for the help.
Thank you so much for this, it was driving me crazy. I noticed over 3 months have passed since you wrote this, so it looks like Google is not planning to fix it.
Thnx… i lost hours of my time trying to find HOW TO DO THIS.
Wow. I did it, thanks to you! I still don’t understand, but at least I got rid of what I wanted gone! Thanks.
Thank you so much! I hate Google. I’ve been trying to find this answer off and on for months.
Above is my first email address that automatically sends received messages to my Prime
Email which is {removed}
I can’t get into above rvtravel address to read my received emails as an old email keeps coming
up as my premier email.
I have had this problem occur quite often and sometimes I fix it myself but not this time.
I brought a tab from pawn shop and they didnt reset and I need to no how to remove this account. Help!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you very much indeed, this was driving me barmy!
Thank you so much. this was %$##$@ me for weeks
We were able to do this, but when we go back into the browser the account reappears. No matter how many times we remove the account it always shows up. Anyone have a solution for that? Thanks!
Eureka! I take it that clicking the button gives you the option of which account to delete? Or does it automatically delete all accounts on the list?
yes, it gives you the option of which to remove….
Thank You!
Thanks a lot …..
THANK YOU! Google is fucked up, really…
Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for.
This post was very helpful. Now, does anyone know how to choose which email address to use as the default when logging in? I have 3 accounts in the dropdown list when I start typing to enter the email address to sign in and there is always one address already in the form box when I start typing.
It used to work perfectly, it used to always save the email address I log into the most as the default address for login, but now that most used one is third on the list and I have to select it instead of it just being pre-filled in the form field.
Anyone know how to select one account address to be the default?
I deleted my Gmail account
But it is still in my list of choosing account
Fuuuuuuuuiiiuiuuuuygrsddckgdss
Thanks a bunch for this! I’ve been trying to get rid of old accounts from that list for months, and it was driving me crazy!
THANK You! You are the first one to explain it clearly.
Thank you! The multiple accounts have been driving me crazy!!! This is exactly the answer I was looking for.
Thanks heaps.
The “remove” button does NOT remove the accounts listed on the page on this computer. (And we really are going crazy!) It is a “shared” computer on our Ref Desk so different folks want to log in.
Oh, and also we cannot log in to our gmail accounts from there now either! Sad! 🙁
Thanks, helped a lot.
thanksssssssssss
Thanks from Germany for this hot tip, mate!
I am having this same problem, multiple accounts showing up in the list when I login. But there is no Remove button. There is also no Add Account button. Just a Create an Account button, which does just that (takes you to a create a new account page). Do I have a different version of Gmail or what? How do I get to the Remove button?
Thanks Ari. I followed your instructions and deleted a linked account but it hasn’t solved the bigger problem that began the moment I first linked two gmail accounts. Maybe you have some insight on this. I decided to link them because I was tired of having to log in and out of two different accounts and Google seemed to promise an easy solution. HOWEVER, the secondary account was the one connected to my blog, my YouTube, and my Picasa accounts, and the moment I linked the secondary gmail address to the primary one I lost access to these through the simple login process. Now, when I click on the secondary address, it shunts me onto the primary account where Google has thoughtfully set up brand new YouTube, Picasa and Blogger accounts for me with none of my previous content and no way to get to it. The only way I’ve been able to get to my original YouTube, Blogger, or Picasa is to go through Google’s recovery sequence and do a password reset. Thankfully I can at least do that. But as soon as I log out, access is lost again. Google is absolutely silent on this problem and I know there are thousands of us in the same boat. I’m ready to just ditch Google and all of its products even if it means losing thousands of photos in Picasa albums, and hundreds of YouTube videos. Nobody seems able to address this problem, least of all “Liz” from Google, who only chimes in when she wants to. Do you have any idea how to solve this problem? Thanks!
I have two computers with both configured the same, e.g., Windows 7 with both Firefox and Chrome browsers. On one when I access my Google Accounts, all accounts I had created are still displayed for me to “choose an account.” This is great!
On the other computer, there is no repetition of my accounts and I must entere them again. Not so great!
What do I need to do to have my created accounts continue to appear from session-to-session when I sign in?
Thanks
Super, super helpful. Thanks very much!
Thank you for posting this!!
Thanks… it seems like more & more often Google breaks things when they try to “add a feature / make things better”. 🙁
Better is the enemy of good enough.
If it ain’t broken beware of fixing it.
Where’s the “Send $’s for a helpful answer” button? 🙂
thanks again for the solution
Hi google This emai account is invalid for me and I signed out once but also is choose and account.
I found this on the internet, and it works.
When you go to the sign in page,
1. select (but do not open) the account you wish to delete.
2. hit the Down arrow. This brings up the account name below in the password space
3. hold down the Shift Key and hit Delete. This removes the lower username.
4. highlight the original name again
5. hold down the Shift Key and hit the Delete Key again. That removes the offending name!
interesting. anyone else try this?
Tried this – success!!!!!!
Thank You
Unfortunately, this won’t work for me. I have several old accounts listed every time I go to access my Gmail, but these accounts themselves have actually been cancelled. The remove button is visible, but when I choose one of these old accounts, it is no longer visible. Any ideas?
Follow the instructions I posted on May 5, 2015. They should work.
Thank you. I did follow your instructions and they worked perfectly!
THANK YOU!!!
Gracias amigo
Thanks for this small tip that helped me to solve a problem which has been bugging me
Great tip, it saved me from viewing there an account of a friend who only logged in once, about one year ago!
Thank you so much!
Thank you, thank you! I have been trying to do this for a month now! Ahhh!
Thank You!!!! A LOT!
Thanks so much, this is the #1 Google search result for “how to remove google account from sign in” and it totally solved this utterly unintuitive procedure. Thank you.
Thank you! This has also plagued me for months!
Thank you SO much
I had two accounts, one for work, one personal.
Left work, but the work account was still there, marked as default, and I could not remove it, because the “remove” button was not present.
The solution: I had to create a third account, log into that 3rd account, log out, go back to the sign-in page and … voila! Now I had access to the “remove” button, and I could remove the old work account.
Nice simple efficient correct answer!!
This is Precisely what I had to do in order to remove the old accounts from my list. Thank you so much to all who contributed to this response. Cheers.
You just type https://accounts.google.com/logout into the address bar and it will log you out and the remove button will be visible.
I can’t even thank you enough for this simple trick. I posted a thank you to the general thread but it was your comment that took care of it. THANK YOU!
Thank you so very much!
I have a corporate Google account and the main solution in the article didn’t work, however this method did. So thanks !
OMG!!!! Worked like a charm! Thank you so much!
THANKYOU!
Brilliant solution! Thanks!
Thank you! You solve my problem.
Thank you so much! This was driving me crazy and I couldn’t figure out how to remove other accounts on my laptop! Genius!
OMG. You’ve made my day, my week and maybe even my year! At some point my son logged in using his school Google account on one of my laptops (or I did it trying to access something school-related). Ever since, *his* login was the default on my devices and I couldn’t figure out how to remove it. I had even posted to a Google forum about this with no success. Then today I decided to try again to resolve this and I found your article. It worked!!! My son has been banished from my login page! Thanks so much!
Helpful, thank you.
I am still not sure if removing this will actually separate out all those accounts.
I created a new gmail account for a group project I’m involved in. Although the password is obviously different, it seems that when I gave access to my colleagues to the new account, they also had access to private emails which were in the other account!
WOW! Thank you so much Gergely. So simple, and it works! In one short sentence, you provided the perfect, easy solution I’ve been looking for. Thanks again and good wishes!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I could write that all day and it still wouldn’t be enough. (Have I said “Thank you?”)
Thanks. It worked.
Inane software prompts… “Remove” is a verb, but the “Remove” button doesn’t remove anything. It just allows you to “Select Accounts to Remove From This Screen”, after which you must select “Done” (not a verb, by the way) to take the action. Have any of these software programmers taken a basic English class?
BUT kudos to Ari for posting this blog for all of us who can’t figure out how to “speak Google”. Much appreciated!
Great. Thanks.
Thanks it worked.
https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin went here and logged out then I arrived at a page which prompted me to Removed accounts.
Thanks.
Wow, after a looooong search i finally found what i needed. Thank you SO much!
Thx a lot dude … and thx to Gergely for the direct link
Mate, thanks so much for this!!!
I have an older samsung galaxy s4 that just got a huge update. I have 3 gmail accounts on my phone and want to get rid of 2. Any ideas as I can’t get a remove button to appear.
i hadn’t seen the red hint above but once logged out of ALL accounts, the remove button appears. great tip, thanks!
OMG! You’re a lifesaver… I couldn’t figure it out for nothing! LOL
thanks so much for this! it worked for me 🙂
THANK YOU!!!!! HOW SIMPLE
THANK YOU SO MUCH! Google had their own search results for this question I’ve been having for several months. I just left it because I could never figure it out. No one wants their ex’s email address linked to their computer… I appreciate this post SO MUCH.
Perfect! Thanks for writing this up!
Top search result for me googling: “remove accounts from google login”
Anyone ever run into the problem where the remove account button doesn’t do anything? I can see it making the normal “click” movement when I click on it but nothing happens. 🙁
Thank you!!!
THANK YOU.
Oh…wow. I’d NEVER have worked that out.
This saved me so much time!!! THANKYOU!
Thank you! I kept telling my mother to use an Incognito tab but she wouldn’t listen…
Original date of post is 2014, but this is STILL the best, clearest, easiest advice – that works!
Thank you!
I am still having the problem of seeing my username in the field where email address is. Even after I removed it, it still shows that at one point I logged into Gmail.
How do I delete this?
you are a life saver. I spent hours on google forums and blogs, but of no use, until I bumped into your website – that, for some reason, doesn’t come up high in terms of relevancy. I think it’s intentional.
Thank you!!!
You are a god amongst men/women
Wanted to say thank you to the person whom placed the link for the sign out of account which show the REMOVE ACCOUNT Button. Thank you for providing this and support!
Genovieve
thanks you so much! It took me forever to find this. I couldn’t figure out why I only had add account, not manage!!!!!
-Life Saver
You are a God amongst men/women.
You make Chuck Norris seem useless.
You should be POTUS and Chief of the UN yesterday.
Thank you 🙂
it’s not working on my computer. any alternative ways?
Awesome article! THANK YOU!
This works perfectly. Thanks so much for the clear explanation!
It’s not a bug (why would you think that it is?) Google inteltionally does this in attempts to keep accounts merged.
I have a disabled gmail account that pops up as default and I can’t log into it to remove it…..can’t figure out how to do this…?
Praise God for this post. I had so many old emails I could never figure out how to delete them in the log in page. Thank you for sharing!!
Many thanks!
simple, elegant, and it worked!
Thank you so so much.
You solved months of my headache.
May god bless you for this.
Very nice!!! T’hank you, I have been searching for hours how to remove the accounts from that list.
Best article EVER
Really appreciate your work.
Thanks!!
YEEESSSSSS. Thank you. Wow, that was hard.
Thank you!!
Thank you!
This article totally fixed something that’s been bugging me for months!! Thank you!! 🙂
Thanks for the really exhaustive post!
Ok! Thanks again for the update 11/2015: This was my second questions. Seems you have all answers of my early morning questions.
I definitely think that Google philosophy is: if a workaround exist, why develop a new code?
It works !
Thank you very much !
Have a great day wherever you are !
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!
This has been extremely helpful, thanks 🙂
THANK YOU SO MUCH!! That was driving me bat-S crazy!! 😋😁
Thank you so much! Several of my students had to use my laptop for presentations last semester due to the lack of appropriate hardware to connect their computers to our projector. I had almost a dozen different sign-ins saved in that list and it was driving me nuts! Thank you!!
The easiest solution is to use Samsung Email app. Next to every email address in the drop down
list is an x. To remove the address, click on the x. This removes that address from Samsung
Email app but not from Gmail. I am disappointed that Gmail has not provided such a simple
solution. However, I am not surprised because Gmail is not user friendly. Furthermore, the
‘Gmail methods’ would not remove all of the bad email addresses. Some addresses I could only
remove in the Samsung Email app. I thought the option ‘Gmail/Setting/Create contacts for
autocomplete/I’ll add contacts myself’ would let me start from scratch, but it does not. And,
what is the purpose of ‘Other Contacts’. Also, with the ‘g Gmail methods’, you will have to fix
every Gmail account.
This problem has existed for years. Gmail could fix this problem. The simple solution is: for
deletion put an x next to every item in the autocomplete list. For addition put a checkbox next
to every email address in the Contact list.
Yes, by following the steps below, you may quickly erase your Google Account from the Chrome browser:
On your computer, launch the Chrome browser.
In the upper-right corner of your profile card, click the options menu.
Select “Remove This Person” from the drop-down menu.
This is s very helpful article and unlike Google community , the thread is not locked for further comments. I a always have same problems. I could be in Google drive and switch to email and then it changes to a different account then I go to photos and then it goes to a third account.. i hate how every move you make affects every google product. A workaround forv gmail is to use the browser version if you just want to go in and out of an account real fast. I am testing your process now.
Can´t believe Google has not made a simple fix for this 8 years since this article.
This is why people stop using products from a company.
This did NOT work for me on my iphone. I’ve tried everything.
When I try to log into the Nest on my iphone, it gives me the “Choose an Account” box then lists a ton of gmail addresses I no longer use. I tried the steps above, but none of those old email addresses show up in accounts.google.com. I tried deleting all apps and erasing google entirely from my iphone, didn’t work. HELP?!?
This no longer works. The option to remove an account is not shown on the screen as per your guide. Please either update this article or delete it to avoid confusing people.