We lost connectivity to Google’s Gmail about 15 minutes ago, and hundreds of users of the service are turning to Twitter to complain of an outage. We’ve reached out to Google — via Twitter since we are users of Gmail and can’t email at the moment.
It’s unclear how widespread the problems are at the moment, and when I floated the issue on Twitter a few moments ago, some others said they were experiencing problems, while other said it was working just fine for them. We’ll monitor this going forward, and update as we hear more.
The issue appears to go beyond Seattle, with San Francisco area technology writers Eric Eldon and Brad Stone experiencing problems as well. In Seattle, SimplyMeasured co-founder Aviel Ginzburg is about at his limit.
“Alright Gmail. I’m about 5 minutes from resorting to cannibalism. If this happens, it’s entirely on you guys,” he writes in a Tweet. Here’s some more of the reaction we’ve been tracking:
As of 9:42 a.m., Google posted this message on its App Status Dashboard.
“We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail. We will provide more information shortly.”
Gmail is one of the most popular Web-based email products, with more than 350 million users worldwide.
UPDATE: As of about 10:35 a.m., service had returned for me. Is Gmail back for you?
UPDATE: As of 10:46 a.m., Google posted this message saying that service had been restored:
The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.
