Change YouTube name: Learn a few different ways to do that

Here ‘Change YouTube name’ means to change your YouTube username. You know you can’t change your Facebook username before 60 days have passed since the last time you did that. In case of YouTube or Google+ username, this thing is a little different. You can change your YouTube username 3 times (and NOT more than that) in every 60 days. If you must change your channel’s name for a fourth or fifth time in recent 60 days, then the only thing you can do is shift your channel to another primary/brand account with that desired name. We’re going to cover all of those topics and procedures in this article, so sit back tight.

How to change YouTube name: the direct procedure

In order to change your channel’s name in the straightforward procedure, you first need to click on your channel’s icon. This particular image is located in the upper right corner of the screen while you’re on any page of your channel. A popup menu will emerge upon clicking this icon; you can use this menu to switch between accounts. Just be on your desired/correct channel while you’re about to change youtube name.

After switching accounts, click on the channel icon again. If you’re on the right channel/account already and didn’t switch accounts or take any other actions, then you still see that popup menu. Now click on the bigger ‘channel image’ that would be accompanied by ‘Creator Studio’ button.

You’ll be taken to ‘About me’ page of your (primary/brand) account. You’ll be prompted to pick/upload a photo to set as your account icon. But in order to change YouTube name, you need to simply cancel that out by clicking on the ‘cross’ button. You’ll be left with the ‘background’ page where you can change not only your account’s name but your account icon also. Now click on the ‘editing pencil’ icon to change YouTube name.

You’ll see a dialogue box where you might have to scroll down a little bit. In case of personal/primary account, you have to choose two names: first and last. This sort of YouTube account can’t have a single word for its name. In case of a brand account you could choose a single word name like ‘YouTubingTips’. After typing the word(s) as your YouTube account’s name, just hit the ‘OK’ button and you’re done.

Don’t choose an ‘impersonating’ name for your account/channel

In case of selecting a new name for your channel/account, don’t choose one that might impersonate another famous and established YouTube channel. That’s why before the selection of a name for your channel, you had better run a search on YouTube with that particular keyword(s). If an established channel is found with that name, then you can slightly modify it in order to sound different. You might even try another name in a case like this.

Also choose such a name which will be suitable for custom url. Suppose you choose ‘TheNewIN’ as your brand account’s name. Then you might choose to have a custom url as https://youtube.com/thenewin for your YouTube channel. Although in order to have a custom url you have to qualify for it first. I guess you should read the following article of this blog to know more about custom url, in case you haven’t already:

YouTube channel url: How to find it and custom url

Shift your channel to another account

In case you have changed your channel’s name three times within last 60 days and you must change this once again, then the only option you’re left with is shift your channel to another YouTube account.

Suppose your primary account or one of your brand accounts is left idle; there is no channel associated with it. Even if there is a channel associated with it, you don’t do any activities on that. Then you can surely shift your active and running Youtube channel to that. You just need to rename that account as per your need/requirements.

Assume that your channel’s current name is TheNewIN and you need to change it to TheNewIndia. Then you may first change your ‘idle’ account’s name to that and then do shift your channel. (You can even change the name after shifting, no problem.)

In case you don’t have any such account/channel left idle, then you can always create a new brand account under the same gmail. Just read the following article; it describes at some point how to do that.

How to make a Youtube account/channel and also customize it

If needed, you can go ahead and learn to manage a brand Youtube account using another gmail; which is depicted in the following article:

Use another gmail to manage y0utube brand channel

Here’s how to do the ‘shift’

First you need to go to the ‘advanced’ page of your channel which you’re going to shift. This page has this url: https://www.youtube.com/account_advanced. On this page you’ll see a link that says ‘Move channel to your Google account or a different brand account’ (by ‘Google’ account, they mean your primary/personal account associated with the concerned gmail). You need to click on this link. You’ll prompted to enter your password, just to make sure it is the right person attempting to make changes.

After putting the pass-code you’ll arrive on a page where you’re supposed to click on a blue button saying ‘Select desired account’. Upon pressing the button you’ll be shown all your primary and brand accounts, other than the one you’re about to shift now. Just select your desired account by clicking on it.

The warning that you get at this stage

When you click on your ‘desired’ account, you may get the following warning. It says ‘you already have another channel associated with that account. So if finally decide to move/shift your channel to this particular account, then all the content (videos, info and settings) on the previously existing channel will be deleted.’ You should not worry about it, because you’re not supposed to have any valuable content on the previously existing channel, right? Well then, go ahead and click on the red ‘Delete channel’ button, the shifting job will be done!

After moving you can change youtube name to whatever you like. You may also need to change the profile pic/icon.