When you’re communicating online, your email address may be the first thing people know about you — and that first impression matters. But there’s a good chance that you created your email address years ago, and it may not reflect what you want to express today.

If you want your email address to leave a different impression, you can change it. Here’s how to change your Gmail address, Outlook email address, Yahoo Mail address and iCloud Mail address.

How to change your Gmail address

While you can’t straight-up change your Gmail address, you can make some changes to how your emails show up — or you can create a brand new email address. Here are your options.

To create a new email address:

1. Sign out of your existing email account
2. Go to Google’s account creation page
3. Enter your information, then click Next
4. Fill out your profile information, then click Next
5. Sign in to your new Gmail account

While making a new account is a hassle, once your account is set up you can transfer your contacts from your old account.

To do it, sign out of your new account and sign in to your original account again. Then:

1. Open Google Contacts
2. Click More > Export from the left-hand column
3. Choose the contacts you want to export to your new account and select Google CSV under “Export as”
4. Click Export
5. Sign out of your account by selecting your profile picture in the upper right and selecting “Sign out”
6. Sign into your new account by entering your login and password
7. Open Google Contacts
8. Select More > Import
9. Click “Select File” and find the file your contacts were exported to. By default, it’s named contacts.csv
10. Click Import

However, there’s an easier fix: instead of changing your email address, you can change the name that displays when you send an email. If that’s all you want to change, then open Gmail in your web browser and:

1. Click on the gear in the top right, then select Settings
2. Click the Accounts and Import tab
3. Under “Send mail as,” click edit info
4. In the Name field, enter the name you would like to display
5. Click Save Changes

How to change your Microsoft Outlook email address

Unlike Gmail, Microsoft Outlook lets you change your email address outright — and it’s pretty simple. To you create a new address for your Microsoft account — including Hotmail, Live and Outlook — you just have to set up an alias, which is essentially a new address that links to your current email account. You’ll still have your original email address, but this adds another address that you can send and receive email from. Your inbox and contact list will stay exactly the same, which is a big convenience. Just remember that your login will still be your original address.

To make an alias:

1. Go to the Microsoft account page and sign in (if you aren’t already)
2. Click “Your info” at the top of the screen
3. Click “Manage how you sign in to Microsoft”
4. Under “Account alias,” click “Add email”
5. Under “Create a new email address and add it as an alias” enter your new account name. Note that new accounts can only be made on outlook.com.
6. Click Add Alias

If you already have more than one address tied to your Microsoft account, you can choose which address is your primary address. Here’s how:

1. Go to the Microsoft account page and sign in (if you aren’t already) 
2. Click “Your info” at the top of the screen
3. Click “Manage how you sign in to Microsoft”
4. Click “Make primary” next to the alias you want to be your primary address

You can also change your display name if that’s all you need to do. To do it, just:

1. Go to the Microsoft account page and sign in (if you aren’t already) 
2. Click “Your info” at the top of the screen
3. Click “Edit name”
4. Enter your new display name
5. Enter the security captcha
6. Click Save

How to change your Yahoo Mail address

Like Gmail, you can’t change your Yahoo Mail address, but you can make a new account and import your contacts. To make an account:

1. Go to the Yahoo sign up page
2. Enter your information and click Continue
3. Follow the on-screen prompts to verify your phone number and complete your account setup

Once you have an account, you can import your contacts from your old account. To start importing, just:

1. Go to Yahoo Mail and sign in (if you haven’t already)
2. Click the Contacts icon
3. Click the Import button next to the correct import option
4. Follow the on-screen prompts to log on to your other account and give Yahoo permission to import your contacts

Again, if you just need to change your display name, you can do that too. To change it:

1. Sign in to your new Yahoo Mail account (if you haven’t already)
2. Mouse over the gear icon and select settings in the pop-up menu
3. Click Accounts
4. Click on your email account
5. Change the name in the Your Name field
6. Click Save

How to change your iCloud Mail address

Like Microsoft, Apple lets you create an alias that links to your existing email address, so you’ll be able to send and receive from a new address without ditching your inbox or your contacts. This includes
If you want to create a new address for your iCloud account — including iCloud.com, Me.com or Mac.com — you can do it by setting up an alias. Your alias will be a new email address that uses your existing inbox and contact list. To make an alias:

1. Go to iCloud and sign in (if you aren’t already)
2. Click Mail
3. Click the gear icon in the lower left
4. Select Preferences in the pop-up menu
5. Click the Accounts tab
6. Click “Add an alias”
7. Fill out the information for your new alias
8. Click OK
9. Click Done

You’ll be able to select the address you use every time you send an email. Simply click on the From field and pick the right email address from the drop-down. If you want to change the default address, just:

1. Go to iCloud and sign in (if you aren’t already)
2. Click Mail
3. Click the gear icon in the lower left
4. Select Preferences in the pop-up menu
5. Click the Composing tab
6. Click “Set a default address”
7. Select the address you usually use

Like all the rest, you can also just change your display name:

1. Go to iCloud and sign in (if you aren’t already)
2. Click Mail
3. Click the gear icon in the lower left
4. Select Preferences in the pop-up menu
5. Click the Accounts tab
6. Change the name in the Full Name field
7. Click Done 

[Image credit: email on phone concept via BigStockPhoto]