Gmail.com Or Googlemail.com

Martin Brinkmann
Jun 4, 2010
Updated • Mar 18, 2015
Gmail, Google
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11

Is it gmail.com or googlemail.com? The answer to this question depends on the country that you are living in and when you have registered a Google Mail account.

Most users who signed up for a Gmail account got the email address in the format username@gmail.com which you see most often around the web. Users living in Germany or the United Kingdom however got username@googlemail.com addresses instead by default unless they registered an account before June 2005 or October 2005 as they were allowed to keep the gmail.com address in this case.

Why two email addresses? Legal disputes in those two jurisdictions forced Google to change the default email address from gmail.com to googlemail.com with the rule that an already registered gmail.com username would not allow the registration of the googlemail.com username and vice verse.

It is also interesting to note that the two Google mail domains are interchangeable. Mails sent to username@gmail.com will reach username@googlemail.com users and vice verse.

The administrative email address for users from those two countries is the googlemail.com address however and not gmail.com. Users from the United Kingdom have seen a recent change as Google announced that it would phase out googlemail.com addresses. New registrations from the UK will now get a gmail.com email address while old users have the choice to convert their googlemail.com address to gmail.com.

Only users from Germany are left with googlemail.com email addresses while the rest of the world enjoys gmail.com addresses.

Still, even users from German can use both email addresses when they use the email service.

Update: Google managed to obtain the rights to use Gmail in Germany in 2012. From June 2012 on, all new sign ups from Germany get gmail.com email addresses just like anyone else.

You may encounter a googlemail.com email address sporadically but that should be an exception rather than a regular occurrence even in the UK or Germany.

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Comments

  1. Ashleigh said on November 20, 2020 at 7:58 pm
    Reply

    I’ve been asked every year by Google to change to Gmail in the UK. I refuse.
    I want the Google mail.com at the end.

    If Google want to buy that from me they’re more than welcome.

  2. Viv Smith said on September 24, 2020 at 4:05 pm
    Reply

    Following your comment previously Gmail and Google mail aren’t interchangeable when they’re part of a login process Number of times I’ve logged in using one only to find I need to use the other
    Is very frustrating 😔

  3. Daniel said on August 1, 2013 at 10:40 am
    Reply

    There’s a glitch in the system. I live in Australia where I opened my Google account but was in Germany for a few months in 2007 where I accessed it and sent email from it. However, 6 years later my browser still often redirects to google.de when accessing my account. Recently Google Drive stopped letting me sign in as x@gmail.com. It insists I sign in as x@googlemail.com. I do this and it reverts to German for a second saying “bitte warten” and then I’m automatically re-signed in as “@gmail.com” anyway and the whole process begins again. I had to change my address back to “@googlemail.com” from the email account settings page before Drive finally let me sign in again. It’s as Google is somehow stuck and thinks I never left Germany and came back home to Australia

  4. Julepongracz said on April 3, 2013 at 5:40 pm
    Reply

    I fOrgot my passcode and it says to check my emails to get my new passcode but I can’t check my emails cause I don’t know my passcode

  5. Now join me? said on November 14, 2011 at 5:46 pm
    Reply

    I like gmail. Nd what’s ur beim

  6. Anonymous said on April 24, 2011 at 3:41 pm
    Reply

    hallo , how ar u

  7. Brie987 said on June 6, 2010 at 6:18 pm
    Reply

    Simplify further. John.jane@g.com

  8. Mike J said on June 6, 2010 at 3:21 pm
    Reply

    My account was set up in late 2006 in the U.S. & it is a gmail address.Or so I use it.
    This seems to be a distinction without a difference.

    1. Martin said on June 6, 2010 at 3:26 pm
      Reply

      There was a way to get gmail mail addresses by using proxies or specific sites that allowed this. Still, you can use both and the emails will arrive, no big deal on the end user side.

  9. Enigma said on June 5, 2010 at 12:24 pm
    Reply

    You can also use “email”+whatever@gmail/googlemail.com For example normal mail will be 22@gmail.com can be 22+spam@gmail.com and it will still get through but can be used as a throw away account.

  10. Chris said on June 5, 2010 at 2:21 am
    Reply

    Yeah I am based in the UK and setup my gmail back in the days when you had to have an invite.

    Both gmail.com and googlemail.com works with my email address which is cool.

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