How to control the used Gmail account when using slides.new, docs.new, etc.

Written by Stefan Judis
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This post is part of my Today I learned series in which I share all my web development learnings.

Thanks to the new top-level domains, many companies provide short URLs to use their product quickly. CodePen has pen.new, CodeSandbox has react.new, GitHub has repo.new, and they're many more out there. These URLs make the web feel very app-like, I like that!

And of course, Google is providing new URLs with doc.new or docs.new and slide.new and slides.new, too. The problem with these URLs is that many people use Docs and Slides with multiple Gmail accounts.

Which account should be used when using docs.new? And what happens if Google constantly chooses the wrong account to create a new document.

Today I learned, that Google's new URLs support a URL parameter to specify the used Gmail account:

  • docs.new/1 – primary account
  • docs.new/2 - secondary account
  • and so on...

Example video showing how to choose accounts using Google document short URLs.

That's pretty cool!

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Stefan standing in the park in front of a green background

Frontend nerd with over ten years of experience, "Today I Learned" blogger, conference speaker, Tiny helpers maintainer, and DevRel at Checkly.