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Newbie with advanced Account problem

S

StarGehzer

Lurker
I think I've messed up.
I'm hoping someone here can help me.
I'm an iPhone user, but my friend Sandi runs an Android phone. She's computer illiterate (except for email & Friendface), I know my way around Windows & can find my way around my iPhone.
Sandi has a Samsung phone (Galaxy M? (model SGH-T679M))running Android Gingerbread (VER. 2.3.5). She has no data plan but uses available wireless for email & Facebook.
She's never downloaded an app (& was afraid to try to) but wanted one in particular.
So Mr. Knight in Shining Armor (that's me) tried to download the app for her.
I found you had to sign into Google to download, and since Sandi still lives in the dark ages (read as, only has a hotmail account) I signed in using My Gmail account.
Now it appears that My Gmail account has taken over her phone. I changed my password so the phone has no access to my account, but error messages keep popping up on her phone because it can't connect.
When I tried to "delete the account" from the phone a popup says...
"Some applications require this account. To remove it, you must reset the phone to its factory default settings (which deletes all your personal data). You can do this in settings, under privacy."
So my question is, can I get My Gmail account out of the phone without her losing her mail, photos, calendar, memo notes etc. ?
Perhaps if I set up a Gmail account for her I can switch it over? Perhaps you have another idea?

Thanks for thinking about it and offering any suggestions..
 
Hi StarGehzer, were workin on it.;)

Edit: It cant hurt to try and set up a new gmail for her, then try and re-sign in to google using it.

Edit: She will need a gmail anyway, no matter what happens, even if you end up doing the factory reset.
 
Try going to settings-accounts & syncs select your gmail address the click menu button. you should get an option to remove account.
 
Easiest way to do here

Have her create a gmail account, uninstall any apps downloaded using your account, unlink your gmail from the Gmail app, accounts and sync and remove it.

Should be able to do it that way.
 
Yes each phone needs it own google/gmail account. But at least they are free.

Each account can download apps from the play store (the only place you should download from is the Google Play store and Amazon btw). And the apps that each account will be tied to that account and follow only that account from device to device. So, if you download an app on her phone with your account signed in - when she gets her own account on that phone, her account will need to download it.

StarGehzer said:
Now it appears that My
So my question is, can I get My Gmail account out of the phone without her losing her mail, photos, calendar, memo notes etc. ?
Click to expand...

I don't understand. If your account was on the phone, wasn't it all going through your gmail account? Same with the photos and calendar? Or was she using third party apps like the generic email app that comes with the phone and other calendar software? Because anything related to gmail, google calendar or anything else google is tied to the account that was signed in (a.k.a. yours).

First step is get her a gmail account for free. She will learn that gmail is endlessly better than outlook (the new hotmail that hotmail converted to).

She may end up losing her content, like settings in apps in all this. But you can download the photos and copy over calendar appointments, etc before you reset the phone.
 
OutOfPhase said:
Try going to settings-accounts & syncs select your gmail address the click menu button. you should get an option to remove account.
Click to expand...

You're right, you do. Thats what I tried before I came to this Forum.
As I posted in my question when I tried that I got the popup saying...
"Some applications require this account. To remove it, you must reset the phone to its factory default settings (which deletes all your personal data). You can do this in settings, under privacy."
So my question is, can I get My Gmail account out of the phone without her losing her mail, photos, calendar, memo notes etc. ?
 
DragonSlayer95 said:
Easiest way to do here

Have her create a gmail account, uninstall any apps downloaded using your account, unlink your gmail from the Gmail app, accounts and sync and remove it.

Should be able to do it that way.
Click to expand...


Deleting the downloaded app (there's only one) first makes sense, I'll try that.
Not sure how I "unlink your gmail from the Gmail app" but when I get the phone again I'll have a look at that.
I suspect trying to remove the email account will once again get me the popup saying I need to do a factory reset, but I'll try it..

BTW, guessing your username has something to do with a certain 11 mile stretch of road? Friends & I come down from Toronto in Canada for a week each summer & love that & many of the other roads in the neighbourhood. We'll be down there the last full week of July this year with hundreds of other Miata's.
 
gtbarry said:
Yes each phone needs it own google/gmail account.

I don't understand. If your account was on the phone, wasn't it all going through your gmail account? Same with the photos and calendar? Or was she using third party apps like the generic email app that comes with the phone and other calendar software? Because anything related to gmail, google calendar or anything else google is tied to the account that was signed in (a.k.a. yours).

First step is get her a gmail account for free. She will learn that gmail is endlessly better than outlook (the new hotmail that hotmail converted to).

She may end up losing her content, like settings in apps in all this. But you can download the photos and copy over calendar appointments, etc before you reset the phone.
Click to expand...


She's been using the phone for months without it being associate with any Gmail Account, using whatever email & other apps came with the phone from Samsung. As soon as I entered my Gmail address into the phone it took over everything. THAT is what I'm trying to undo now.
I agree Gmail is better than Hotmail, but you know how hard it is to get people to change things on their computer/phone when they aren't very computer literate... Any changes mean they have to learn new things, & they dislike that. People like you & I enjoy learning new things and are forever making changes to our toys.

I've created a Gmail account for her, I'll do some experimenting & see if I can swap out her account for mine, otherwise I guess I'll have to reset her phone (or let her live with the error messages saying it can't connect to gmail)
 
StarGehzer said:
You're right, you do. Thats what I tried before I came to this Forum.
As I posted in my question when I tried that I got the popup saying...
"Some applications require this account. To remove it, you must reset the phone to its factory default settings (which deletes all your personal data). You can do this in settings, under privacy."
So my question is, can I get My Gmail account out of the phone without her losing her mail, photos, calendar, memo notes etc. ?
Click to expand...

S Planner is synced to your Samsung account if you have one or make one now all your memos will be available instantly when you reset the phone. Reset doesn't delete photo data which is on the internal sd card, which is where her photos would be, unless she syncs with Google Picasa embedded in the Gallery in which case all of those photos would be synced immediately after you've resented the phone.

The same for Gmail.

Typed out using SwiftKey, only available for Android ツ :thrasher:
 
StarGehzer said:
I agree Gmail is better than Hotmail, but you know how hard it is to get people to change things on their computer/phone when they aren't very computer literate... Any changes mean they have to learn new things, & they dislike that. People like you & I enjoy learning new things and are forever making changes to our toys.
Click to expand...

True. My trick here is to email everyone to tell them my new email account info and that I will be switching over to it in the next few months. A small fraction, as you mention, will actually take the steps to do this.

Then have her forward her hotmail to gmail (you can do it for free in the settings of hotmail). Then have her only reply to emails from gmail. Slowly this will being to propagate across her friends email accounts as the auto reply for her.

She never has to close her hotmail account. She can just always have it forwarding to gmail and always replying from gmail.
 
gtbarry said:
She never has to close her hotmail account. She can just always have it forwarding to gmail and always replying from gmail.
Click to expand...

You can also login to the Web version of gmail and verify your Hotmail address in the settings as a sending address which you can reply to emails from.

That sending address will then be available to pick from in the android gmail program when replying to email.

So you can send as the hotmail address through your Gmail and also get your Hotmail forwarded to the hotmail too.

Typed out using SwiftKey, only available for Android ツ :thrasher:
 
In the end I found I couldn't remove my address from her phone. I'd changed my password, so the phone had no access, and added an account I set up for her, in her name.
I had to go through her contact list and delete the 300+ contacts it had imported from my account. I found some interesting things in her contacts under the 'unattached' heading. There were names of people I've known who have been dead for 30 years, people who never had any computers in their lives. I'm not sure where the names came from, but again, I had to go through & delete them, one by one.
In the end I learned... don't enter your email address into anyones Android in order to download an app.
Thanks to all who tried to help, & those who commented.
 
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