Help I Have Two (or more) Accounts

I don't know about you, but I signed up for two Google accounts and then I used both of them at different times. It is confusing and I wanted to consolidate them into one account. I was able to do it, but it was a little complicated. In this post I will list the steps to use to consolidating Google Accounts.

1. Find out what is on the different accounts. 

• In the top corner when you are logged in you will see your information. 
• Click on the picture or your email address on the far right and choose MY ACCOUNT.

2.  A webpage opens up with all sorts of ways that you can work with your account. Choose Delete My Accounts or Services.

3. After you click again on Delete my Account this will give you a list of what is on your account. You will have to spend some time looking and thinking about what is on your different accounts, what you want to save, what you want to move to the combined account and what doesn't matter. It is a little scary to click on Delete My Account for the second time, but it really just gives you information. You are not deleteing your account yet. 



4. Once you have decided which account to keep and which to delete you will have to deal with all of the content that is in the account that you are going to delete. Some of the information will transfer to your other account, but some of it will have to be downloaded to your computer and then uploaded to the other account.

Google is clear about the fact that the data in your account belongs to you and you have the right to download that data. Here are some examples of ways I could deal with the data from my account. 

• Blogger - I would need to download my blog and then recreate it with the address I want to use and upload it again.
• Drive - I would share all of the documents and folders in my Drive account with the email address of the other account. Then when they are deleted in one place I will have them in the other.
• Gmail - I would probably download my mail and have an archive on my computer rather than uploading it again to my other address. I could forward any mail that I want to be sure is in my other account.
• Photos - I would need to download my photos from this account and add them to the other account.
• YouTube - I would need to download any videos and upload them to my other account.
• Calendar - Most likely I would just let this be deleted because I would be using the calendar on the other account. I suppose any appointments I need to show on my current calendar could just be added.
• Chrome Sync - I wouldn't worry about this because it is just my bookmarks.
• Contacts - I would need to export my contacts from one account and then import them into my other account.

There are a few other services that Google owns, so you will have to take each one individually and decide what you want to do with it. 

After looking at all of that you may think that it is not worth all of the work to combine the accounts. You can just leave them both up there and use only one of them from now on in order to make it less confusing. One will have current info and the other will be an archive. 

If you decide to do the transfer there are two choices once you have emptied out one of the accounts. You can DEACTIVATE or DELETE the account. When you delete an account you can NEVER use that username again. It is gone. When you deactivate the account the account and the information that is left in it is kept in an archive and if you ever want to use that account again you can activate it. 

If you are wanting to do this, but need a little comfort and a little walking through call (512)560-2609 or email me (helpimnotageek@gmail.com). I can connect with your computer. It does not matter where you are I can help you out :-)

Deleting an account in Facebook

I am not having success keeping up with Facebook week. It is Sunday and so far the "week" has been two weeks and I have not been regularly writing. So, this will be the last one for the Facebook series for right now.

There may be other things that you are curious about, so please feel free to give me ideas for future posts! Today I will be talking about getting rid of a Facebook account. What happens when you do not want your account anymore?

If you are thinking that you do not want to use your account any more go into the account settings and choose SECURITY. At the bottom you will see the words "DEACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT". When you click on it you have a second chance and Facebook does what it can to try to persuade you into keeping your account active. Even after deactivating your account you can choose to opt in or out of receiving email from Facebook from your friends.

Notice that they say "deactivate" rather than delete or totally shut down. When you do this Your profile is disabled (people cannot look you up) and your name and pictures are removed from anything you have shared. Your profile information and friend lists are saved in case you want to come back. This is often used for people temporarily. You can reactivate your account by logging back into it.


PERMANENT DELETION of your account is a different thing. In order to do this you have to send a request to Facebook to have it done. If you do this you cannot change your mind and come back to your account Information like your name, email address, mailing address, and IM screen name and other personal information is removed from their database. 

Another way of dealing with an inactive account is MEMORIALIZING the account. When someone passes away it is possible to leave their account up, but make it inactive as a memorial to that person.

True Confession: Most of this information has come from the Help documents available right at Facebook. You can easily find this type of thing out on your own, but maybe this summary is helpful.

p.s. Another place to look for information about Facebook is on their own Facebook page which can be found by clicking About Us at the bottom of the page or searching for Facebook in the search window. It is so full of information that I am not sure how you find what you want, but it is good to know about. I learned that Oprah is doing a live Facebook show!