Why YSK: A Google account is not the same as a Gmail account, and you don’t need to create a new Gmail email account to have a Google account.
I’ve spoken to many different people who equate a Google account to a Gmail account. This is not the case. Unfortunately, this leads to many new Gmail accounts being created, solely because they think that they need to have a Gmail in order to access other Google services.
Here’s the gist:
A Google account gives you access to Google services like Sheets, Docs, Calendar, Drive, Photos, Gmail, YouTube, etc.
A Gmail account is an email service account with Google. When you create a Gmail, you also create a Google account by default.
However, the reverse is not true. If you create a Google account (with a non-Gmail email address), it does not automatically give you a Gmail account.
If you already have an email account with another provider, you can use that as your Google account.
For example: Let’s say your email is jane@example.com. Rather than creating jane@gmail.com, you can opt to create a Google account with jane@example.com and avoid creating an account for Gmail.
Unfortunately, Google tries to get you to create a Gmail account during the process of creating a Google account. (see image).
It’s important to differentiate this and prevent people from registering new Gmail accounts unnecessarily.
What’s the harm in creating the gmail account with your google account?
No real harm, but it’s one more account to manage/worry about.
Flipside is that relying on a singular account is also bad, as now it’s a single point of failure in regards to security.
You’re making a new account either way. Whether you login with a gmail or other email address makes no difference to it being a Google account. Making a gmail you ALSO get another email, which you can promptly ignore until some possible point in the future where it may be useful.
These companies typically use AI analyses of uploaded files to prevent people from doing stuff like upload child porn. Unfortunately, they can’t distinguish between “pedo shit” and “picture of naked child with a nasty rash emailed to a doctor”.
Several people have lost years of email because they uploaded pictures like those to OneDrive. By separating accounts, you can keep your files and your email separate.
There have also been instances of people attacking others by inviting them to WhatsApp groups (which still isn’t disabled by default) and spamming a bunch of illegal shit. If you have WhatsApp set to auto backup, you may just end up sending that illegal shit to Google, who in turn detects it and kicks you out of your account.
For this reason, I think it’s a good idea to separate any cloud storage accounts from your email accounts.
Yes, but what does change when I register both accounts with a Gmail address?
In theory you get the benefit of them banning your Drive Google account and leaving your email Google account alone. Google will probably link the two, but I don’t think the ban will cross accounts automatically.
I suppose “harm” can be subjective in this context, and there are already some good replies here.
One more thing to add to the list that I’d consider harmful in creating a Gmail account is all of the privacy issues that come with having a Gmail account.
Out of respect for my recipients and myself, I wouldn’t want all of our emails being read.
We can go down the rabbit hole of “Email is inherently insecure anyways,” but that’s a separate discussion.