Have you ever thought of switching/migrating one of your Gmail accounts to a different one?  I did and I’m about to tell you how I did it.  I had one those Hotmail like screennames (clevername.somethingorother) that I used for years.  Recently I’ve been debating on using my official Gmail account (shealaughlin).  With that said, there were a few things that have often stopped me:

What about my.

• Email?
• Google Calendar?
• Google Reader?
• Google Voice?
• Contacts?
• Filters?
• Feedburner?
• Google Analytics?

Luckily, I was able to answer all the above questions AND migrate all of my data/info.  This is how I did it.

Importing Your Old Email

1. Log into your old email account.
2. Settings –> Forwarding and POP/IMAP –> Select “Enable POP for all mail”.
3. Log into your new email account.
4. Settings –> Accounts and Import –> Add POP3 Account.
   Note: Normally you would you the “Import Mail and Contacts” option BUT Google does not support this option for Gmail to Gmail transfers. Thus, the following steps must be followed.
5. Enter the email address your would like to import.
6. Enter the password for the account.
7. Click “Add Account”.
8. Done!

Exporting/Importing your Google Calendar

1. Log into your Google Calendar.
2. Settings –> Calendar Settings –> Calendar Tab.
3. Select Export Calendar – This will prompt you to save your current calendar entries as a .zip file.  Save!
   
4. Log into your new Gmail account/Google Calendar.  Hint: I recommend using a different browser.  This will enable you to be logged into multiple Gmail accounts at once.
5. Browse to find your .zip file and unzip.
6. Settings –> Calendar Settings –> Calendar Tab.
7. Instead of selecting “Export Calendars”, select “Import Calendars”.
8. Select the new .ics file you just unzipped.
9. Select which calendar you would like the imported events to be “attached” to.  This was my default calendar.  However, depending on how many calendars you have, you might want to create a new calendar to import your old events.
10. Done!

Transferring Your Google Reader Feeds

1. Log into your old Google Reader.
2. Settings –> Reader Settings –> Import/Export.
3. Click “Export your subscriptions as an OPML file”.
4. Log into your new Google Reader.
5. Settings –>Reader Settings –> Import/Export.
6. Click “Choose File” under “Import your subscriptions”.
7. Select the .XML file you just downloaded.
8. Click “Upload”.
9. Done!

Transferring Your Google Voice Account

1. Enter all the the required information into the “Request to allow Google Voice account transfer” form.  Note:  My request was fulfilled in less than 3 hours.

Exporting/Importing Contacts

1. Log into your old Gmail account.
2. Click “Contacts” –>Export –> Save the .csv file based on your export requirements.  Note: I only exported “My Contacts” as this would remove the erroneous contacts that were not important to me.  “My Contacts” is usually your address book.  If you don’t select “My Contacts” then all of your email correspondents will be exported.

1. Log into your new Gmail account
2. Click “Contacts” –>Import –> Import the .csv you exported in step 2.
3. Done!

Exporting/Importing Filters

1. Go to the Google Labs section of your Gmail account –> Enable “Filter import/export”
   
2. Go to Settings –> Filters.
3. Select the filters your would like to export –> Select “Export” at the bottom of the filters menu.
4. Log into your new Gmail account.
5. Go to the Google Labs section of your Gmail account –> Enable “Filter import/export”.
6. Click on “Import Filters”.
7. Select the .xml file you just exported and accept the changes. Note: When you import your filters AND apply those filters to your existing mail, this will then re-create the labels you had in your previous account.
8. Done!

Transferring Your Feedburner Account

1. Log into your old Feedburner account.
2. Select the feed you want to transfer.
3. Select “Transfer Feed”.
   
4. Enter the email address you would like to transfer the feed to.
5. Log into your new Gmail account, open your email, and accept the transfer request.
6. Done!

Transferring Your Google Analytics Account

Unfortunately, there is not way to transfer your account BUT there is a work around.

1. Log into your current Google Analytics Account.
2. You’ll have to add a new user for each of the websites your would like to transfer.
3. To do this select “edit” for each account.
   
4. Select “Add User”
   
5. Enter your new Gmail email address.
6. Change the access type to “Account Administrator” – This will give your new account full admin rights to the respective website/settings.
   
7. Save changes.
8. Done! Your new account should be able to view and edit your Google Analytics preferences.

These were just a few of the Google services that I absolutely needed (and actually use) to move over while switching accounts.  I would definitely be interested in alternative methods to the steps I have stated above and also the steps required to migrate the other Google services that are available.