• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Multiple google accounts

droidmaha

Newbie
Oct 2, 2010
14
2
Hi there! My two sons, 10 and under, are each getting a Nexus 7 for Christmas. I wanted to charge and set them up ahead of time. I'm pretty sure I can do the following, but can anyone just tell me 'yes, you can'?

Upon registering each tablet, I will register them to my sons' respective gmail/google accounts. This way I can put reminders on their calendars (and ultimately make them responsible for their own stuff!), they can start learning to use email in earnest, etc. However, I want to add my own gmail/google account strictly for Google Play, so I can control their purchases and they can download any of the apps I've already gotten.

I just added a google account to my phone so it definitely looks like I can have multiple google accounts on that. I should be able to do the same on the tablet, right?

TIA
 
Hi there! My two sons, 10 and under, are each getting a Nexus 7 for Christmas. I wanted to charge and set them up ahead of time. I'm pretty sure I can do the following, but can anyone just tell me 'yes, you can'?

Upon registering each tablet, I will register them to my sons' respective gmail/google accounts. This way I can put reminders on their calendars (and ultimately make them responsible for their own stuff!), they can start learning to use email in earnest, etc. However, I want to add my own gmail/google account strictly for Google Play, so I can control their purchases and they can download any of the apps I've already gotten.

I just added a google account to my phone so it definitely looks like I can have multiple google accounts on that. I should be able to do the same on the tablet, right?

TIA

Let me preface this by saying I've never added multiple accounts to my device.... but this **should** work.

What you could do, is sign into the play store on each of the devices using your account. They will be able to use all of the apps you've purchased that way.

You would then have to set up the gmail to use their gmail account, and you'll probably want to take your gmail account off of the devices so they dont get your emails.

I know you can sign into multiple accounts from the play store, but I'm not entirely sure how well that works.

You can also have multiple user accounts on the device, but I don't believe purchased apps are available to other users on the tablet.
 
Upvote 0
I have added my wife as a new user on my Nexus 7. When she clicks on her user icon, she sees her apps, email calendar, twitter etc.

I'm not sure that this is what you are looking for though. I believe you can have multiple email addresses set up for the Play store which is probably what you want to do.
 
Upvote 0
Okay, thanks for the info. And definitely thanks for suggesting the Play password. I actually already had a $17 refunded lesson in that department :). I won't be setting up multiple user profiles on their tablets since they're the only ones using them, but it does look like I can use my google account to sign in to Play even if their tablets are linked to their gmail accounts for everything else.
 
Upvote 0
Okay, thanks for the info. And definitely thanks for suggesting the Play password. I actually already had a $17 refunded lesson in that department :). I won't be setting up multiple user profiles on their tablets since they're the only ones using them, but it does look like I can use my google account to sign in to Play even if their tablets are linked to their gmail accounts for everything else.

Haha, yeah, me too, except mine was a $99 dollar lesson (My 5 year old). Thankfully Google was understanding. :p
 
Upvote 0
So have you done this and did it work the way you want? I am curious because I was going to give my grand-daughter my "old" Galaxy Player for Christmas, and want to do something similar. Looking for a way to get many of my apps onto that device.

Pretty sure I need to factory reset the Player to add her new account as the default account. I don't want any of my Gmail or contacts on that device. So I can add her email to my Play account so she can use apps I've purchased?

I assumed I'd just have to download all new (free) apps onto her device.

Unrelated: She has a Kindle account, does that mean she has access to free app of the day?
 
Upvote 0
I haven't done it yet! I have the tablets and the covers, but I'm waiting for the screen protectors to arrive. Call me silly, but I want those to go on first thing before I do anything. Give me a couple of days and I will post back. The protectors should have been here today, so hopefully tomorrow I can actually set one up.
 
Upvote 0
So I can add her email to my Play account so she can use apps I've purchased?

I assumed I'd just have to download all new (free) apps onto her device.

Unrelated: She has a Kindle account, does that mean she has access to free app of the day?

Regarding adding her email to your Play account, my guess is no. When I added my son's gmail account to my phone (via settings/add accounts or something similar), and then I went to Google Play. I was prompted to select which gmail account to use to access Play. From that, I am guessing that your Play purchases are unique to your gmail account and are not shared with other gmail accounts. You might do some research to make sure though, as I'm not the expert!

If you want her to use her own gmail account, yes, you'd have to first purchase (free and not free) the apps under her gmail account and install from there.

When you say she has a kindle account, that would be her amazon account, right? I have a kindle but I don't have a "kindle" account. All my kindle purchases are via my amazon account. Any app purchases (free or otherwise) I make through Amazon's app store is associated with my amazon account. If you mean she has an amazon account, then yes, she should have access to free apps there under her own account.
 
Upvote 0
Regarding adding her email to your Play account, my guess is no. When I added my son's gmail account to my phone (via settings/add accounts or something similar), and then I went to Google Play. I was prompted to select which gmail account to use to access Play. From that, I am guessing that your Play purchases are unique to your gmail account and are not shared with other gmail accounts. You might do some research to make sure though, as I'm not the expert!

If you want her to use her own gmail account, yes, you'd have to first purchase (free and not free) the apps under her gmail account and install from there.

Not true... open play store, press menu, press accounts, select desired account, press OK.

You can switch between multiple accounts as desired
 
Upvote 0
But don't different apps show up in each account? I would think Droidmaha is correct, why would developers or Google allow purchased apps to be shared in more than one account?

I TOTALLY misread his post.(and the one to which it was replying to.) I thought he was saying that once you chose the primary account, that was it... and it was the only account you could download apps from.

But yes, that is correct. They will not show up when her account is selected. But if he switches to hos account, he can download any app he has already purchased and simply switch back to the primary account when finished.
 
Upvote 0
Update: I just spent the last 3.5 hrs getting my sons' two tablets set up (due to playing a little with settings, and applying the pita screen protectors, etc). I registered them to their respective gmail accounts, added my gmail account and in the play settings on the tablets, selected my account to use for purchasing apps. I set the parental controls. I also installed the amazon app store app, also registered to my account with parental controls set (not as secure as play, but I'll work with it). And I installed the kindle app, also registered to my amazon account so I can buy books for them and have them delivered to the respective devices and share them between devices later. All in all, for a first quick run, I'm really pleased with the ease of set up. This andoid version takes a little getting used to, but I really like it for the brief time I've used it. So to answer tcat007's question, yes! I was able to do what I wanted to on the tablets! Yeah!

P.S. Just for the record, even though I'm not on here very often, I'm a she, not a he :).
 
Upvote 0
Hi Droidmaha, I have set up accounts in the same way for my kids, on each individual nexus.
The only problem I have with this is that when adding my play account, it also added my gmail account to the email. Did you have the same problem and have you tried removing it?
I thought Id check first in case it removes the play account as well.

Its not really a problem as I dont use that gmail address for anything else, but Id rather the kids not access it just in case.

Also I havent tried with kindle yet but can you chose which books to download to each app, and restrict the books you dont want them to?

:)




Update: I just spent the last 3.5 hrs getting my sons' two tablets set up (due to playing a little with settings, and applying the pita screen protectors, etc). I registered them to their respective gmail accounts, added my gmail account and in the play settings on the tablets, selected my account to use for purchasing apps. I set the parental controls. I also installed the amazon app store app, also registered to my account with parental controls set (not as secure as play, but I'll work with it). And I installed the kindle app, also registered to my amazon account so I can buy books for them and have them delivered to the respective devices and share them between devices later. All in all, for a first quick run, I'm really pleased with the ease of set up. This andoid version takes a little getting used to, but I really like it for the brief time I've used it. So to answer tcat007's question, yes! I was able to do what I wanted to on the tablets! Yeah!

P.S. Just for the record, even though I'm not on here very often, I'm a she, not a he :).
 
Upvote 0
Hi Droidmaha, I have set up accounts in the same way for my kids, on each individual nexus.
The only problem I have with this is that when adding my play account, it also added my gmail account to the email. Did you have the same problem and have you tried removing it?
I thought Id check first in case it removes the play account as well.

Its not really a problem as I dont use that gmail address for anything else, but Id rather the kids not access it just in case.

Also I havent tried with kindle yet but can you chose which books to download to each app, and restrict the books you dont want them to?

:)

When I added my gmail account to the tablet, I was given a list of permissions to give the tablet, and one of them was email for my gmail account. I unchecked that and the calendar and a few other things. I kept the Play related items checked. I can't verify it now because the tablets are wrapped and under the tree, but I bet if you go to settings/accounts and select your email account, you'll get the same options.

When you purchase a kindle book, or get a sample, you choose which kindle it goes to. When I downloaded the kindle app to their tablets, I registered each app to my amazon account. Then I went to amazon to manage devices and renamed my sons' kindles appropriately (I would do this one at time so you don't get confused). Now when you purchase or sample a book, you can select which kindle to send it to. Furthermore, because you now 'own' that book, either of them or me (on my real kindle) can go to my kindle library and download it too.

I don't know about kindle restrictions. I haven't looked into this. I figure I'm the one who'll be doing the browsing and shopping, so it's not a worry to me. If I had to guess, since it's tied to one amazon account, you can't restrict a kindle app from downloading a certain book from your library. Purchases, other than what I described, I don't know.

Hope that helps!
 
  • Like
Reactions: borospark
Upvote 0
Ha, ha! No worries. I just thought it was funny because on another 'tech' forum, they also thought I was male. Since this is pretty anonymous, I was going to let it go, but what the heck, I am who I am!

Well, you know... rules of the internet and all...

http://m.urbandictionary.com/#define?term=rules of the internet

Rules of the internet said:
16. There are NO girls on the internet

embarrassed-emoticon-71.png
 
Upvote 0
Hi, just re-read this, the difference is, I didnt add my gmail account, I just added my account to play. For some reason it has also added a gmail account so I didnt get the options. I was just wondering if I can delete this account from gmail, leaving my play account and their gmail account, if that makes sense.
I'll try it anyway, but like you they are wrapped now, so it'll have to wait

:)


When I added my gmail account to the tablet, I was given a list of permissions to give the tablet, and one of them was email for my gmail account. I unchecked that and the calendar and a few other things. I kept the Play related items checked. I can't verify it now because the tablets are wrapped and under the tree, but I bet if you go to settings/accounts and select your email account, you'll get the same options.

When you purchase a kindle book, or get a sample, you choose which kindle it goes to. When I downloaded the kindle app to their tablets, I registered each app to my amazon account. Then I went to amazon to manage devices and renamed my sons' kindles appropriately (I would do this one at time so you don't get confused). Now when you purchase or sample a book, you can select which kindle to send it to. Furthermore, because you now 'own' that book, either of them or me (on my real kindle) can go to my kindle library and download it too.

I don't know about kindle restrictions. I haven't looked into this. I figure I'm the one who'll be doing the browsing and shopping, so it's not a worry to me. If I had to guess, since it's tied to one amazon account, you can't restrict a kindle app from downloading a certain book from your library. Purchases, other than what I described, I don't know.

Hope that helps!
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones