Over a billion people use the Gmail app every day to access emails, notifications, and subscriptions across their devices, and over 75% use Gmail mainly on their mobile.
Google accounts are tied to all kind of data, most of which you wouldn’t want other people being able to obtain.
Being logged into Gmail means more than just access to your emails. A Google account holds data from your driver folders, your calendar, Google Docs and all your emails and accounts linked to your Gmail.
It’s no surprise that Google has a lot of control over your digital life, but the question is, how do you unplug and sign out of the Gmail app on your mobile device?
How Do I Log Out Of Gmail App? – Here’s how
Surprisingly few people know how to sign out of the Gmail app, and that’s because you don’t really sign out of it. You can switch accounts, but you don’t really ever log out of an account.
The only way to properly sign out and remove access is to remove the account from your device.
Don’t worry – this won’t delete the account or delete all emails in Gmail either, it will just tell Google that you don’t want this specific device to be logged into your account.
You will especially want to do this if you ever want to give somebody else your phone or sell it.
The last thing you want is your Gmail to still be connected to the device and your data to be available to somebody else, so it’s always wise to remove your accounts before handing it over.
Just make sure you know your account details if you ever want to sign in again because it will remove Gmail access from all your apps. That includes YouTube, maps and a bunch of other apps that use Google accounts to log in.
All of these will lose access to your account once you remove it from your device and be automatically signed out.
Signing out of Gmail on iOS vs Android phone
The process to sign out of Gmail is the same whether you are using an iOS or the Android operating system.
This is because it’s about removing the account, not changing any settings or preferences in client-specific menus.
1. Open the Gmail app
The first step is to open the Gmail app by tapping the icon on your homescreen or searching for the app with the search function.
Once you find the app, just open it up as if you were going to use it normally.
2. Open your accounts list
Once your Gmail app is open, tap your profile picture in the top right. This will either be a picture of your choice, or the initial of your first name, as it is on mine.
3. Manage your accounts
When you tap your profile picture, a list of accounts connected to your device will pop up. This is where you select which account to use, but that’s not what you want to do right now.
Right at the bottom you will see Manage accounts on this device. Tap that option.
4. Select the account you want to sign out of
The same list of accounts will pop up, and this time you want to select the one you wish to remove. Tap on it to select it.
5. Remove the account
On the information screen you will see a “remove account” option below the Gmail address you selected.
Make sure it’s the correct Gmail account you want to remove and make sure you have your login details saved before you do this. Once you are ready, tap remove account.
6. Confirm removal
Once you tap remove account a notification will pop up asking you to confirm this action. Tap remove to finish the last stage of logging out of the Gmail app and removing your Google account.
Conclusion
You have now successfully removed your Google account from your device and in doing so, have signed out of the Gmail app.
Logging out of Gmail may be confusing and convoluted in general, but it’s pretty simple in practice and only takes a few taps on your screen to remove access to your account on your device.
If you want to avoid getting specific emails, you can also block certain emails with Gmail too.
Now you can be sure all your precious data is no longer linked to your mobile with your important account information. If you ever want to re-connect the account, just select “add account” and log back in.
