Google experienced a widespread outage on Tuesday, affecting users across Australia, the US, Europe, Asia, and South America. Services including Gmail, Google Drive, Hangouts, and Google Maps were impacted for several hours, with reports of issues beginning around 1pm AEDT (2am GMT).
Users reported being unable to send emails, receiving error messages such as “Message could not be sent. Check your network and try again.” Others faced difficulties opening attachments, accessing files in Google Drive, and uploading photos to Hangouts. Google Maps users attempting to use Street View encountered a black screen instead of location images.
Google acknowledged the problems on its service status website, stating: “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Gmail. We will provide more information shortly. The affected users are able to access Gmail, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behaviour.” The company later confirmed issues with attaching files across various products and uploading/downloading from Google Drive.
The outage was resolved by 5.30pm AEDT (6.30am GMT), according to Google. In Australia, the hashtag #gmaildown trended on social media, with some users joking that the disruption provided an excuse to avoid work. Others speculated that the outage might force people to revive old Hotmail accounts.
