# Gmail weirdness
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 15, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299 "2016-04-15T19:16:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/1 "2016-04-15T19:16:23Z")
A few years ago when my wife got an iPad, I set up a Gmail account for her. I can access it on my PC so can let her know if she has any new mail, or delete old emails which she never does.
Besides my regular email account which I use on Thunderbird, I have Hotmail and Yahoo accounts which I use when don’t want to use my main address for any reason.
Because Gmail has a better interface, thought i’'d set up an account for myself. Went through the process with my own user name and password, and it seemed to go through.
I bookmarked it, but whenever I try to go there, my wife’s account pops up. That is pretty weird.
So, to try to find some help, I, well, googled “Gmaii,” but when I clicked on a couple of links, guess what happened? Right, up pops my wife’s email account. Even weirder.
So searched for “Gmail customer service,” but they don’t seem to have any, other than a forum for users. OK, it’s free, although would think Google is making enough money to actually have some customer service.
I tried to sign up for the forum at one of their sites, but could not seem to find a way to do this.
Anybody have any idea how I can sign up for my own account without having it just open my wifes?
---
### Author:  [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/2 "2016-04-15T19:20:42Z")
If you are using the Gmail web interface, you need to log off from your wife’s account and log on with your account. Otherwise the most recently accessed Gmail account is opened. No way that I know of to have two bookmarks, each pointing to a different account.
---
### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/3 "2016-04-15T19:26:48Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#):
>
> If you are using the Gmail web interface, you need to log off from your wife’s account and log on with your account. Otherwise the most recently accessed Gmail account is opened. No way that I know of to have two bookmarks, each pointing to a different account.
I think this is right. You are logged into Google as your wife, which will default to your wife’s Gmail account. You need to log out of Google itself. On a blank web page go to the top right and sign out of Google.
---
### Author:  [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/4 "2016-04-15T19:32:24Z")
As the previous posters said, Google keeps you signed in until you explicitly sign out. So you are seeing your wife’s email account because she is the person who is signed in.
However, if you use the “private browsing” or “go incognito” feature of many browsers, Gmail won’t recognize your computer and you can sign in with another account even if your wife is also signed in in the regular way. In Firefox you can have private and regular windows open at the same time; handy for when you want to have two Gmail accounts open side-by-side.
---
### Author:  [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/5 "2016-04-15T19:34:52Z")
Bookmarking your mailbox will have no effect, because each mailbox doesn’t have a unique URL. You go to [gmail.com](http://gmail.com) (or any Google service, for that matter) and log in, and then you see the stuff for the account you’re logged in as.
So, as others have said, you have to log out as your wife and log in as you.
However, up in the top right corner there’s a little profile icon bubble thing. Click on it, and it’ll show you which account you’re currently logged in as, let you log out, etc. If you click the “Add Account” button, it lets you sign into another one, and you can then switch back and forth through the profile drop-down.
---
### Author:  [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/6 "2016-04-15T20:17:43Z")
Thanks everybody, that makes sense.
Now that I think about it, the same works for two Hotmail accounts. I plead senility as an excuse for not figuring this out.
---
### Author:  [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/7 "2016-04-15T20:27:13Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#):
>
> Thanks everybody, that makes sense.
>
> Now that I think about it, the same works for two Hotmail accounts. I plead senility as an excuse for not figuring this out.
One other way to stay logged in is to use two different browsers and have you logged into different ones. Chrome, Internet Explorere, Safari, Opera, etc.
---
### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/8 "2016-04-15T20:50:30Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#):
>
> Thanks everybody, that makes sense.
>
> Now that I think about it, the same works for two Hotmail accounts. I plead senility as an excuse for not figuring this out.
No sweat Geoff. Haven’t seen you around for a while and am glad you’re still posting.
Take care.
---
### Author:  [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/9 "2016-04-15T21:15:09Z")
Also, using the web interface you can click on the “G” near the upper-right hand corner and have multiple Gmail accounts open simultaneously (I have a personal and a corporate account, so that’s what I do every morning - whether I want to or not).
---
### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/10 "2016-04-15T22:59:46Z")
> [@GiantRat](#):
>
> Also, using the web interface you can click on the “G” near the upper-right hand corner and have multiple Gmail accounts open simultaneously (I have a personal and a corporate account, so that’s what I do every morning - whether I want to or not).
It’s not always a G. It stands for your first name (is GiantRat a French name? :D), not for Google or GMail.
---
### Author:  [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2016, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/11 "2016-04-16T18:47:42Z")
Thanks to you guys, got an easy way to switch without having to sign out and in all the time for the two accounts.
**Dishevel** , I liked the idea of using Chrome for my second account, so opened that, got my account, set up new password, and that worked.
Then **GiantRat** , you and others pointed out that clicking on the “bubble” or whatever, lets me easily change from one account to the other while in Firefox, without having to sign in/out. Don’t even have to open Chrome to do that. Problem solved.
**Leffan** \*\*\*\*, good to hear from you. The reason have not been posting here for a while is that almost a year ago, we left AZ (reluctantly) and moved to the Denver area where our kids are, as we are getting old(er), me at 88 and my wife at 86, and we had no family down there. Took a while to find a house, and now we are having it all remodeled inside, so living in chaos.
I dearly miss the Sonoran desert and the mountains to climb, but so be it. Today it has been snowing all day. The reason we left the Northeast 20 years ago and moved to AZ was to escape the #@%# snow. Oh, well…
---
### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/12 "2016-04-16T20:21:06Z")
By the way, there was a few browser plugins that allowed you to quickly switch accounts. The one I used stopped working after a browser update and I never bothered looking for a new one so I don’t have one to recommend but they’re out there. Currently I just check secondary accounts through my phone. The two browser solution works as well.
---
### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-weirdness/752299/13 "2016-04-17T04:52:21Z")
FWIW, your sign-in state is stored in a cookie. If you delete cookies, you aren’t signed in any more.