I’ve had a single GMail account for over a decade. I’ve thought of creating a second one for many years to use for lower security sitations. Today I finally did, to install Google Play, and thus other apps, on my Onyx Boox e-note. In particular, I was trying to install Libby so I could borrow e-books from my library and read Lord of the Flies.
I don’t trust Boox enough to give them credentials for my main Google account, especially since their devices aren’t Google certified. I had to do a little dance of entering my credentials, connecting some ID, opening Google Play, clearing some caches / app data, and trying again a few times until it finally worked.
So I finally got Libby installed, was able to connect to my library account, and then “checked out” my book. I hadn’t read Lord of the Flies since I was a kid, but it has popped up several times in my life since then, including once when I confused it for The Jungle in front of a whole college class, making me want to revisit it. Finally got around to it.
Anyway, I now have an account that I won’t use for important things. I can use it for Google Play on untrusted devices. I can use the GMail for unimportant mail lists or other situations where I don’t want to give out my normal address. I can also use the GMail for testing purposes in web development.