The lifetime of the transient phases of luminescent mechanochromic gold isocyanide complexes could be tuned through the modification of the termini of flexible side chains. Upon grinding, these complexes initially showed an emission color change from blue to yellow. The yellow emission spontaneously changed to blue or green, but with different lifetimes of the yellow-emitting transient phases depending on the substituents. Details of the mechano-induced structure changes were also described.