How to keep Google from associating work e-mail with throwaway gmail?

January 3, 2014 2:35 PM

(all e-mail addresses below are fakes, natch) I created [e-mail] solely for the purpose of having a Google voice account to port a cell phone number to. I no longer needed the phone, and consolidated what were two phones (work and personal) into one number. Since I didn't want to check another e-mail address when voicemail/text notifications came in, and since the discarded phone had been for work, I set up [e-mail] as the address to forward all e-mails to, and also set up this e-mail as my recovery address for the [e-mail] account. This is the only association between these two accounts, and I have never publicized [e-mail] at all, to anyone. Now that I've done this, gmail users who enter [e-mail] into the TO: field to send me e-mail see the icon I used for [e-mail], and apparently the Google+ info that Google automatically set up for that account. It gets worse after the break...

On at least one occasion, a client whom I requested to create [e-mail] to forward to [e-mail], instead wound up creating the forwarder to [e-mail]. The e-mails never made it to my work e-mail; they were sent to the throwaway and never forwarded (probably one too many hops on the forwarder?) Thing is - I never even told my client about the throwaway.

How do I fix this? If I delete the Google+ account (which of course they balefully warn you not to do), will it break the gmail or the google voice account associated with it? For that matter, will it even solve the problem?

posted by randomkeystrike to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: I had a similar problem. It had to do with Google thinking my GMail and Google App account was one in the same. Is the [e-mail] simply set up as a forward or can you actually send email as that from the [e-mail] account?

If it is setup as simply a forward, then I cannot help. If it is set up to also send email as me@, then the devil is in the way those are set up. It has to do with whether or not the other email (not gmail) is set up as an alias or not.

You can delete the Google+ part of the account. I have more than 10 gmail or google apps accounts and none of them are using Google+

Not sure this is helpful, but I can confirm that you will not break the gmail or GV if you say no to Google+. (I fought Google+ versus the use of Picasa for my photos and won! Although, it did cost several lives and countless millions.)
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:53 PM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I've killed Google+, with, as you say, no ill effects. It appears I'll have to wait a while to see if the undesired association goes away.
posted by randomkeystrike at 4:13 PM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Took it about 24 hours, but it quit pulling up anything to do with the throwaway after killing the google+ account. Guess you get best answer, JohnnyGunn...
posted by randomkeystrike at 10:18 AM on January 6, 2014