How do I remove a Gmail account from my iPad?

Last reviewed: October 14, 2026 · Markdown version

Find out where the account lives first: an iPad can have your Gmail in Apple's own Mail app and in Google's Gmail app at the same time, and each is removed separately. In Mail, it is Settings, Apps, Mail, Mail Accounts, the account, then Sign Out or Delete Account. In the Gmail app, it is Profile, Manage accounts on this device, Remove from this device. Neither closes the account. Apple's words: "This action doesn't cancel the email account; it just removes it from your iPad" (Add and remove email accounts on iPad, read 14 October 2026).

Apple's Mail app: remove it, or just switch Mail off

Apple's iPad guide gives two different actions, and on a family iPad the difference matters (the Add and remove email accounts on iPad page above).

Delete the account. Settings, Apps, Mail, Mail Accounts, tap the account, then Sign Out or Delete Account. Apple says this removes the account "from the Mail app and from all the apps that use it on your iPad." The page does not list those apps. If the same Gmail account is also feeding the iPad's calendar or contacts, check those afterwards, since by that sentence they go with it.
Turn off only the mail. In the same place, tap the account and, for anything other than iCloud, "Turn off Mail." Apple describes this as a way to "temporarily stop sending and receiving email from an account on your iPad", and adds "You can easily turn it back on at any time." Use it when a child's iPad should stop showing your inbox but keep the shared calendar.

Changed your mind? "If you change your mind later, you can add the email account back to your iPad" from Mail Accounts, Add Account.

Google's Gmail app

There is no sign-out button inside the app. Google: "The Gmail app on a phone or tablet: You can only remove your account from your device." The steps on an iPad: open the Gmail app, tap Profile at the top right, then Manage accounts on this device, then Remove from this device (Sign out of or remove your account from Gmail (iPhone & iPad), read 14 October 2026).

The side effect is bigger than the name suggests. Google says removing the account from the app "also signs you out of all other Google apps on your device, like Maps and YouTube." On a shared iPad that may be the point, or it may sign a family member out of YouTube in the middle of a film; say so before you do it. Your mail is untouched: "If you remove an account from your device, your Google Account isn't deleted."

An iPad you no longer have

If the iPad has been sold, lost or left somewhere, remove it from your Google Account instead. Google's route from the Gmail app on another device: Profile, Manage your Google Account, Security & sign-in, then under "Your devices", Manage all devices; pick the iPad and tap Sign out. Look carefully at the list: "To ensure there's no account access from a device, you must sign out of all sessions on that device individually" (the Sign out of or remove your account from Gmail page above). Google counts a session as signing in "from a browser, app, or service", and says a device "may display a single session or multiple sessions", so one iPad can appear more than once.

For a stolen device, a password change is the wider step, and its exceptions are on removing Gmail from a phone, which also covers Android.