Maybe your mid-2000s self was deep into scrapbooking, “Twilight” or World of Warcraft. That was fine then. It may not be the address you want on a job application, bank account or note to your child’s teacher. Or, you may go by a different name today, another good reason to change your Gmail name.

Google says U.S. Gmail users can make one change every 12 months, with up to three new usernames total. But getting the name you want may not be easy.

When Gmail launched in 2004, the pool of available names was wide open. According to internet legend, Google engineer Paul Buchheit, employee No. 25, created the first version of Gmail in a single day. What began as an internal tool grew into one of the world’s most widely used email services. Gmail now has roughly 1.8 billion active users, which is more than one in five people on the planet.

If you were one of the early users, you may have been lucky enough to get your actual name. If not, you’ll want to follow these guidelines for your new selection. 

The most professional choice is usually some version of your name. First name plus last name is ideal, but adding a middle initial or middle name can provide a unique alternative. Try switching the order of your first and last name and using initials for your first and middle names. A Reddit user recommended: first.last.initials, which worked for me. For those of you with a credential or honorific, try that in place of the initials.

Do not add personal information just to get an available address. Birth years, graduation years, hometowns, children’s names, school names and favorite teams may seem harmless, but they give strangers more information about you than they need. Some of those details are also common answers to account recovery questions. And, If anything looks like an old date, you can be subject to ageism during the hiring process.

Keep in mind that periods do not make a new address. Gmail ignores dots in usernames, so using one will not help you find a unique name. Instead, try inserting hyphens or dashes. Once you have the right address, think about how you use email.

Gmail already does some sorting for you by separating mail into tabs such as Primary, Promotions and Social. That helps, but it does not solve the bigger problem: High-volume, low-priority email still lands in the same account you use for important messages.

I recommend setting up a separate email address for newsletters, online shopping, coupons, retail discounts, recipes, contests and anything that requires an email address before you can see the deal. This keeps the steady stream of sale alerts and newsletters out of your main account. And if you miss a promotion? That may save you some money.

Next, clean out the old mail.

If you have thousands of messages, do not delete them one page at a time. Use Gmail on a computer and search by type. Gmail supports search operators such as older_than:1y to find messages older than a year. You can also search by date, sender, attachment and size.

Try these searches: older_than:2y, larger:10M, has:attachment older_than:5y, unsubscribe older_than:1y and from:storename older_than:1y. Adapt them to suit your Gmail situation, and you’ll have an orderly inbox sooner than you think.

After a search, click the checkbox at the top of the results. If Gmail shows a message offering to select all conversations that match the search, choose that before deleting. That is the trick that lets you clear thousands of messages at once instead of only the first page.

Be careful with anything financial, legal, medical or tax-related. When in doubt, archive instead of delete. Archived messages leave the inbox but remain searchable.

The larger point is simple: Your email address is part of your digital identity. It is how friends reach you, how companies verify you and how you recover access when something goes wrong. It should be professional enough to use without explanation, private enough not to give away personal details and organized enough that important messages are not buried under last year’s sales.

Leslie Meredith has been writing about technology for more than a decade. As a mom of four, value, usefulness and online safety take priority. Have a question? Email Leslie at asklesliemeredith@gmail.com.