Change Gmail password

When you first signed up to create a Gmail account, you had to choose a password at the same time you picked an email account. This is the password you'll use all the time until you or another authorized user changes it. In this tutorial, we will show you how to change your Gmail password, and give you a few recommendations on picking a password that is secure (harder to guess by hackers, for example).

How do I change my Gmail password?

Follow these simple steps to change your Gmail password:

• First, you will need to login to Gmail; once you are inside your inbox, look at the top right corner of the screen for a series of links next to your email address, and click on "Settings":
  
• The Gmail settings screen will load, and display tabs that let you control and customize your profile with Google when it comes to emails. Select the third tab, "Accounts and Import":
  
• Then, scroll to the very bottom of the page, and click on the "Google Account Settings" link under "Change account settings", as shown on the screenshot below:
  
• A new window will open to your Google account / profile - make sure that your popup blocker doesn't prevent that window from opening. In the left column ("Personal Settings"), locate and click on the "Change password" link. (The "Change password recovery option" link lets you customize password-related settings like the security question and secret answer for your Gmail account or the password recovery email address on file.)
  
• The Gmail "Change password" screen will now load, and let you reset your current password to another one; for security reasons, to confirm your identity, you can either confirm your current password, or answer your secret question in the top portion:
  
• Once you have done so, type the new password you would like to use for Gmail inside the "New password" text field, and retype it for confirmation inside "Confirm new password".
• Once you have carefully typed your new Gmail password, click on the "Save" button to apply the setting: note that this change takes effect immediately, and will affect not just your Gmail account, but also your Google profile as a whole. In other words, to customize your Google search settings, for example, you will need to start using your new password. The same applies for your YouTube account / profile, for example, if you have linked accounts. More broadly, your new Gmail password will be used whenever you need to sign in using your Gmail email address as user name.

This is all it takes to change Gmail password, very quick and easy: especially if you are using Gmail from a public computer, we recommend that you regularly change your password. To get a more in-depth look at Google's free email service, have a look at our comprehensive Gmail Tutorial.