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I logged into my Google account after switching my OS from Windows to Ubuntu a while ago. Today, I realized that Google Accounts has my device listed twice. The list is:

  1. Linux
  2. Windows
  3. Other Devices...

That is the literal list. One device is listed once as Linux and again as Windows. It may fix the problem if I sign out from the "Windows" listing of my device but it's the same device but Google thinks it's different. I'm just scared to touch it. What do I do?

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  • Don't the devices actually have different names to identify them? In essence, you could have 2 PCs, one with Ubuntu (Linux) and one with Windows and that would be perfectly acceptable.
    – graham
    May 4, 2021 at 13:05
  • @ThomasWard I don't need to old Windows log in. Why would I? Windows is no more now, I switched to Ubuntu. So I can delete the Windows entry?
    – Shambhav
    May 4, 2021 at 13:09
  • @ShambhavGautam yes, you can remove the Windows entry. It won't affect your Linux login. I converted my initial comment to an answer.
    – Thomas Ward
    May 4, 2021 at 13:13

1 Answer 1

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Google is not able to discern between different OSes and devices as the same device. This is due to browser and OS fingerprinting, which says to Google that it's a different device.

Removing the Windows entry won't break your Linux system's Google login. It will only remove the Windows login. (You should NOT do this if you use a dual boot - OP of this post is simply 'done' with windows, but for dualboot you should not remove either device)

Unfortunately, Google doesn't have hardware fingerprinting added as well, which means that it doesn't have the ability to fingerprint the hardware and ID both Windows and Linux as the same system - hence why it shows them as two distinct devices. You can remove the Windows entry safely.

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    @user68186 updated, but not sure if that's particularly relevant because of OP's specific case. ;)
    – Thomas Ward
    May 4, 2021 at 13:23
  • Thanks for the quick update! Both you and I were not sure that OP is single booting until the clarification on the comments. I thought someone reading the question and the previous version of the answer (but not all the comments) may get the wrong idea. :)
    – user68186
    May 4, 2021 at 13:32
  • @user68186 I just saw this now and although I didn't explicitly state that I was single booting, I implicitly stated it by this line "after switching my OS from Windows to Ubuntu". Switching the OS, that should be clear. I thought, people would understand it. But sorry for any possible confusions.
    – Shambhav
    May 29, 2021 at 9:56

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