Setting up your custom domain email address as an alias for your normal Google account

Daniel Dantas (@dantasfiles)
3 min readApr 19, 2022

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This post describes my experiences allowing a user to log in to a normal Google account (x.y@gmail.com) with their custom domain (previously G Suite Legacy) email address (x@y.com)

I’d recommend not deleting your old G Suite Legacy account, as it gives you the option to later retrieve data you may not realize you didn’t transfer, or, in extreme cases, to transition back later if necessary.

This utilizes information from the official Google Sign in to your Google Account with another email address documentation

Rename your G Suite Legacy account

  1. Open Google Admin with your y.com administrator account logged in.
    (Depending on how you initially set up your custom domain, this may be one of your users, or a separate account from your normal users.)
  2. On the Users screen, click Manage on the 👤Users pane

3. Click on the x@y.com user

4. On the user page for x@y.com, click Update user

5. On the Update user screen, change the email address to x.legacy (@ y.com), and click Update user
x@y.com will be added as an alternate email address (email alias) to x.legacy@y.com. We need to delete that in the next step.

6. On the Update user screen, click the User Information pane, then the Alternate email addresses (email alias) pane
Click the x to delete the x@y.com alternate email, and click Save

You have now renamed the x@y.com G Suite Legacy account to x.legacy@y.com

This has the additional benefit of popping up a warning notification on any phones and tablets where you are still logged in as x@y.com instead of x.y@gmail.com.

7. Repeat the above steps 3 though 6 for each of your users.

Add your custom domain email to your normal GMail account

You will need to do this section for each Google account

  1. Go to Google Account for your x.y@gmail.com address
  2. Click 📋Personal info
  3. On the Personal Info screen, click Email in the Contact Info section
  4. On the Email screen, click Add alternate email
    You may be asked to re-sign into your x.y@gmail.com account

5. On the Add alternate email screen, enter x@y.com and click Add

6. You will receive the following email. Click where instructed to verify the request

from: Google <no-reply@accounts.google.com>
to: x@y.com
subject: Security alert
Verify your added email
x.y@gmail.com
A request was made to add x@y.com to your Google Account. Click here to verify this request

You can now sign into your normal Google account with either your custom domain email x@y.com or your Gmail address x.y@gmail.com.
The previously set password for your normal account x.y@gmail.com will be used for both x@y.com and x.y@gmail.com

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Daniel Dantas (@dantasfiles)

I create guides to help me fully understand the issues that I’m encountering and fixing. Web: dantasfiles.com Email: daniel@dantasfiles.com