Google preps a tight new account switcher for its Android apps

Some of us will go our entire lives working with just one Google account, but for those of us who do need to juggle multiple accounts, whether for work or school, the company’s 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’re previewing what look like some upcoming changes to the account switcher UI.

Across Google’s Android apps, the account switcher appears as a largely consistent experience — tap your user icon, whether you’re in Gmail or Drive, and you’ll find the same options for changing accounts, account management, and adding new ones. We were recently crawling through Google’s new version 2.26.217.9.all.alldpi release of Drive, and we’ve spotted some early work on a new layout for this screen.

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.

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 “Manage your Google account” button down below everything. We also see the screen lose its explicit “Switch account” text.

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’s not just an aesthetic choice, either — 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:

Alright, so Google’s thinking about shrinking down the overall size of the account switcher. But why bother? On Drive here, it’s not like there’s not tons of space for the old look — and then some.

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’s 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’re looking for.

Even though we’re getting our first peek at the new layout through Drive, once Google is ready to go live with this change, we’d almost certainly see it spread across all the rest of the company’s 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.