determining the primary user without code

[mistermouse]

I borrowed a friend's phone (Android 2.3.6). I put my email account in for the "email" application (not "gmail"). Now I'm trying to remove my stuff from his phone, and I'm unable to figure out how to delete this account.

After searching around, I'm thinking he might not have ever associated an email account (although he thinks he had), and my gmail account is the "primary account" for the phone. How can I determine that? I find all sorts of posts about "you can't change the primary account", but I can't seem to find anything for determining what is being used as the primary account.

Since he has other stuff on the phone (like contacts, photos, and whatnot), I'm trying to avoid a factory reset.

Thanks.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! If you only added your email account to the stock Email app, there's no way the primary Google account that the phone is associated with could be yours.

Go to Settings>Accounts, select Email, and see if your email account is there. Select it, then tap the menu button and then Remove Account. That should remove your email account from the stock Email app.

You can see if your Google account has somehow become associated with the phone by going to Settings>Accounts, and tapping Google. Do you see your email address there? If so, select it, tap Menu, and then Remove Account.

 

[mistermouse]

It appears my first reply didn't make it...
I'm not seeing the settings you mention. First, under "settings", I don't have "accounts", but do have "accounts and sync". Under "accounts and sync", I don't have Google or my email account. I do have: Background data, Auto-sync, WhatsApp, and "Samsung account" (which isn't my account). I double checked, and I'm running Android 2.3.6.

Since I've changed my gmail password, perhaps the "just as good" would be to remove my account from "email". But, I can't figure out how to do this. And the username seems to be a read-only field, so we can't change it to something else.

 

[B. Diddy]

Different phones will have slightly different terminology--I'm going off of my Nexus 5.

It's been a while since I used a Gingerbread phone, but in the Settings>Accounts & Sync menu, there ought to be an option to Add Account. If you don't see it on that screen, tap the menu button and see if it's there.