{"id":519704,"date":"2026-06-05T07:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/519704\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T07:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:22:14","slug":"google-preps-a-tight-new-account-switcher-for-its-android-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/519704\/","title":{"rendered":"Google preps a tight new account switcher for its Android apps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_Ph\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"google account switching gesture 2\"  alt=\"google account switching gesture 2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/google-account-switching-gesture-2.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Andy Walker \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Google Drive shows early evidence of work on a new account switching interface.<\/li>\n<li>While functionality identical, the new UI is much more compact.<\/li>\n<li>That change could reduce excess scrolling in apps with lots of content on this screen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some of us will go our entire lives working with just one Google account, but for those of us who do need to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-multiuser-widget-3526110\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">juggle multiple accounts<\/a>, whether for work or school, the company\u2019s Android apps blessedly make it relatively easy to jump back and forth between those different roles. Every once in a while, though, Google likes to tweak its approach to exactly how we make that switch, and today we\u2019re previewing what look like some upcoming changes to the account switcher UI.<\/p>\n<p>Across Google\u2019s Android apps, the account switcher appears as a largely consistent experience \u2014 tap your user icon, whether you\u2019re in Gmail or Drive, and you\u2019ll find the same options for changing accounts, account management, and adding new ones. We were recently crawling through Google\u2019s new version 2.26.217.9.all.alldpi release of Drive, and we\u2019ve spotted some early work on a new layout for this screen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/andauth.co\/AAGooglePreferredSource\" class=\"e_Rm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"e_Ph\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780633273_555_google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Ph\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780633274_992_google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Right now, your account switcher looks like the screen below, on the left. But once the changes in this new Drive release go live, that interface could start looking like the two screens on the right.<\/p>\n<p>Our main takeaway is that this new look is just a lot tighter. Google drops the friendly salutation entirely, shrinks your user photo and integrates both it and your email into the collapsible switcher, and slides that \u201cManage your Google account\u201d button down below everything. We also see the screen lose its explicit \u201cSwitch account\u201d text.<\/p>\n<p>The most eagle-eyed among you may have spotted another subtle change here: The icon for setting your photo is switching from a camera to a pencil. That\u2019s not just an aesthetic choice, either \u2014 the existing camera icon takes you directly to a screen for changing your pic, as shown on the left, but the pencil will instead take you to your full Google account personal info page:<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Ph\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"drive new account switcher 4 watermarked\"  alt=\"drive new account switcher 4 watermarked\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/drive-new-account-switcher-4-watermarked-scaled.jpg\"\/><img class=\"e_Ph\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"drive new account switcher 5 watermarked\"  alt=\"drive new account switcher 5 watermarked\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/drive-new-account-switcher-5-watermarked-scaled.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Alright, so Google\u2019s thinking about shrinking down the overall size of the account switcher. But why bother? On Drive here, it\u2019s not like there\u2019s not tons of space for the old look \u2014 and then some.<\/p>\n<p>The important thing to remember is that not all Google apps are quite as spartan with their approach to this screen. In ones like the Play Store and Gemini, as you can see below, there\u2019s so much other stuff that any move to reduce the size of the switcher itself could reduce your need to scroll around to find the option you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Ph\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"drive new account switcher 6 watermarked\"  alt=\"drive new account switcher 6 watermarked\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/drive-new-account-switcher-6-watermarked-scaled.jpg\"\/><img class=\"e_Ph\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"drive new account switcher 7 watermarked\"  alt=\"drive new account switcher 7 watermarked\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/drive-new-account-switcher-7-watermarked-scaled.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Even though we\u2019re getting our first peek at the new layout through Drive, once Google is ready to go live with this change, we\u2019d almost certainly see it spread across all the rest of the company\u2019s Android app lineup. That might mean making a small adjustment as you get to know the new UI, but it ultimately looks like a move in a positive direction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u26a0\ufe0f<\/strong> An <strong>APK teardown<\/strong> helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Walker \/ Android Authority TL;DR Google Drive shows early evidence of work on a new account switching&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[257],"tags":[7165,18,823,132411,19991,161729,19,17,279,82],"class_list":["post-519704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-authority-insights","tag-eire","tag-google","tag-google-account","tag-google-apps","tag-google-drive","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116696302216529608","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}