Android consequences of renaming Google Apps users?

[Cassidy]

Long time reader, first time poster.

I have a Google Apps domain with three users with Android phones, including myself. At least two of us will be getting our last names changed during the year, and I would like to change the Google Apps login for those users (our usernames are based on a combination of our first, middle and last names/initials.)

The question: Is there a way to facilitate this change *without* having to hard-reset the Android devices? There are no references in the Google Apps Administrator Help to this. The administration panel gives the following warnings:

Before proceeding please note the following:

* Google Talk will lose all remembered chat invitations after renaming
* The user may not be able to chat for 3 days after renaming
* The rename operation can take up to 10 minutes
* Please note that a new nickname (<old email address>) will be created for this user to ensure continued delivery of email
* Please ensure that the user logs out during this process​

The nickname it creates is not valid as a Google Account sign-in address (I have already tried with a test account at my domain), and I am assuming that the Android devices (two phones and a tablet with the same account as one of the phones) will fail to connect using the saved credentials.

Any suggestions?

 

[EvilMonkey]

I have a similar question. A year ago when I got my EVO, I had no idea how tightly integrated all the Google stuff was, so I just used a "dummy" email that I had basically reserved for signing up for things that I knew would flood me with spam and crap.

A year later, and now I want to switch my phone to use "real" gmail account (to use Voice, Apps, etc), but I am assuming by doing that, I will lose all my apps that I've purchased under my "dummy" account and everything.

I'm not really sure what to do about it, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'm open. Not sure if I can just add my other gmail account and keep the old one or not (or how the market would work since I would want to begin buying things under my "real" gmail account and discontinue the old one).

 

[Cassidy]

You can add your second account to the phone, but any apps you buy from Market will always be associated with the first account you add to the phone. Google Talk will also only work with the primary account. The only way to change that is to factory-wipe the phone and start over... Hopefully soon an update to Android will let you change the primary account without wiping the phone.

With Google Apps (the domain offering from Google) you can rename a user account as the administrator, but they give no indication of the consequences of doing this. That's the problem I'm running into . I have the SDK on my computer, but I'm not sure how to test accounts from a virtual device (there seems to be no ability to add Google accounts to the Android images provided in the SDK, but perhaps I'm missing something?)

 

[EvilMonkey]

You can add your second account to the phone, but any apps you buy from Market will always be associated with the first account you add to the phone. Google Talk will also only work with the primary account. The only way to change that is to factory-wipe the phone and start over... Hopefully soon an update to Android will let you change the primary account without wiping the phone.

That really sounds like a pain, but I suppose doable (the old 'take 2 steps back to move forward' routine). I am assuming I can use Titanium Backup to backup my apps and restore them after I wipe and re-associate the phone with my other gmail account, but I'm guessing the market will not recognize that I've purchased those apps and updating them will be out of the question. I'll have to research Titanium Backup a bit....I have it but haven't used it much, but would be nice if I could at least save the data (for my saved games and stuff, and then restore it after I re-purchase/download my apps).

Sigh...guess I need to go through my purchased apps and figure out what exactly I think is worth repurchasing....lots of things I've bought but don't actually use.

I've got to say, it's pretty disappointing that I can't change this or initiate a transfer of licenses or whatever to another gmail account or something....I mean, people get married/divorced and change their names all the time, so it's pretty conceivable they'd be changing their email address. But since I'm sticking with Android for the foreseeable future, I guess I should do it now before I end up buying a lot more apps.

Grrrr.....looks like I'm going to have to set aside a full day to do this and get my phone back in order.

 

[Cassidy]

Titanium Backup will do the trick backing up everything as long as you are rooted. (My devices are, but my sister's is not.)

A transfer of licenses is something I have been looking for: I would like to be able to "gift" an app (such as if I give my old Android phone to my oldest son, I would like to buy a game and give it to him without tying the Google Account I assigned him to my credit card!) Haven't found a way to do that yet, either.

Getting married/divorced is definitely a legitimate reason to change one's email address (that's why I have the two changes to make at our domain!) There needs to be a way to move content between accounts, or to change the primary account on the device without wiping.

 

[EvilMonkey]

Yeah, I'm rooted so I'll use Titanium (but this won't help with purchased apps, right? I mean, I should just backup the data, redownload/re-purchase the apps from the market, then restore the data?)

And I'm assuming my normal nandroid backup (with clockworkmod) wont' do me much good? That usually keeps everything (apps,data, my CM7 ROM). I think what I need to do (correct me if I'm wrong), is:

1. Backup my data with Titanium
2. Factory Reset
3. re-flash CM7 (I don't think I'll lose my root by factory resetting)
4. Set up the phone under my new gmail account
5. redownload and repurchase my apps
6. restore data from Titanium

Anything I'm missing there?

This sounds like a good rainy Saturday activity, since I'm not in a huge rush. Won't buy any apps until I can set aside the time to take care of this.

 

[Cassidy]

Nandroid will restore everything, including the old account data.

A friend of mine thought of this last night: you may try contacting the developers of your paid apps and see if they can help without you having to repurchase everything.

You should, even if you have to repurchase apps, be able to restore the *data* for your paid apps from Titanium Backup. Haven't tried this yet; I do not have a spare Android device lying around. Also: "Factory"-wipe, if I remember right, wipes the data and cache partitions, which means CM7 will still be there, but reflashing won't hurt anything if you want to.

You got all the steps right there.

You're right: spend a rainy Saturday. And make sure you yank your SD card out of your phone: some devices wipe the SD card as well (like my tablet)

 

[EvilMonkey]

I took some of the holiday today to do this. I didn't really have too much trouble EXCEPT when I got to My Apps in the market (to see my downloads), it simply says "No downloads from Android Market"

Now, I know I just spent about 90 minutes downloading apps under my new account I have set up. WTF?!?!?

Oddly enough, if I search for an app, it tells me it's installed (Vignette is even telling me there's an update available).

 

[EvilMonkey]

Rebooting fixed it.