Today, I logged out of gmail without deleting the account with Android 6. How did I do this?

Fasterfreddy2

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May 26, 2017
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I've a factory standard Moto G4 with Android 6 despite weeks and weeks of nagging to upgrade to Nougat.

Today I made an attempt to update aka "manage" the two gmail accounts I have running on the phone. One I used on my previous Motorola E, and one I set set for my newer (but no longer new) phone. I have used email for longer than most (not all) of you have been alive, but I'd been struggling with working out how to manage (meaning - doing some housekeeping) on a mobile. Sooooo easy on a PC.

Anyway, during the flip-flopping between accounts, trying to delete spam (old emails/spam etc) which I appear to need to do line-by line, I did something that seems to be impossible.

I GOT A DROP DOWN MENU TO LOG OUT OF BOTH EMAIL ACCOUNTS.

At the time I thought nothing of it, until I tried to repeat it. Couldn't find what I had done. Have carried out an extensive search and found the generally accepted way of doing this, (logging out) is to delete the account(s) on the phone or the tablet.

Well I can tell you, that isn't necessary. There is a keystroke sequence that produces a small drop down box on the upper right side of the screen, asking if you want to log out of gmail accounts on the phone, and confirms each one is logged off when you select it.

The $64,000 question is: What sequence did I use? I wish I had known whatever I did was special. Perhaps 30 screen choices later, it dawned on me I'd found something special. 50 screen changes later, I knew I had. A Google search tells me I did the impossible, but it isn't impossible, there is a hidden 'Easter Egg' way of logging out of Gmail when using Android that hasn't been declared by Google.

Why do I mention this?

No-one is going to find this "logging off" option, if people aren't looking. Well, it's there, so I'm hoping someone with the time and tenacity to find it, WILL find it, and publish the result.

If anyone wants to know why I might want to log out of gmail, the person asking does not understand the fundamental need for security, so please don't show your ignorance by asking. Google wants us logged in to their data collecting system 24/7 and is why their PC based gmail service has recently changed so you stay logged into gmail unless you log out. A change many people don't like for good reason.

I'm unhappy I can't logout of gmail on my Android phone, and it seems there is a way of doing it that Google has hidden. Why? Why hidden?

So, can someone please help find the hidden route to logging out of gmail on Android devices?

I was running no other apps in the background, though Whatsapp is installed, as is Twitter. No Facebook. Nothing else installed or running. (I'm not sure Chrome wasn't running though?)

Good luck, all you clever people.
 
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Welcome to Android Central! Did you log out from your Google account on the phone or just on the email app? I'm also not sure what you mean by keystrokes -- are you talking about keystrokes on the onscreen keyboard, or one of the hidden codes on the dialer?
 
I logged out of the email account(s) on my phone, meaning that if anyone picked up the phone and tried to read my emails, they'd need to login to each account (as I had to) and without knowing the passwords, they wouldn't be able to do that. The Google mail application was still running, I did not "force" it to stop, nor delete the accounts from the phone.

By "keystrokes", I mean whatever I did to alter screens, or selection I made in the menu options. "Finger touches" I suppose in phone/tablet speak. For example, if I flip-flopped (toggled) between the two accounts (say) 5 times, it might have given me an extra option in a menu I hadn't seen before. There MUST BE a sequence that triggers an extra option. (aka Easter Egg) I wish I knew what it was, judging by absence of information on how to do this, I'm thinking I could make a fortune on You Tube demonstrating how it can be done.
 
Hmm, interesting. Are you using a stock Email app, or does the G4 only come with the Gmail app, and that's where you added your email accounts?
 

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