Gmail

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 1st of April 2004, Google announced Gmail as a limited beta and offered every user one gigabyte of storage. Rival mail services offered far less at the time. Today Gmail is the largest email service in the world, with 1.8 billion users. People reach it through a web browser, through mobile apps, or through third-party mail programs that speak the POP and IMAP protocols. They can even pull in accounts from other providers. How did a project kept hidden from most of Google's own engineers grow into that? What happened to the storage promise, to the look of the inbox, and to the odd side projects bolted onto it? And why did privacy groups, courts and a rival company spend years arguing over what a machine may read in your mail?

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• 2. Project Caribou

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  Paul Buchheit developed the idea for Gmail several years before Google announced it. Inside the company the project carried the code name Caribou. For a time, most of Google's engineers were kept in the dark about it. That changed as the product improved, and by early 2004 most employees were using it to reach the company's internal mail.

  In November 2006, Google released a Java-based version of Gmail for mobile phones. In October 2007 it began rewriting parts of the code behind the service. The aim was speed, plus new features such as custom keyboard shortcuts and bookmarks for specific messages and searches. IMAP support arrived the same month. Around January 2008, a change in how Gmail used JavaScript broke a third-party script that some people relied on. Google acknowledged the fault and helped affected users find workarounds.

  Gmail left beta status on the 7th of July 2009, more than five years after its limited debut.

  Until December 2013, readers had to approve the display of pictures inside an email, which worked as a basic safeguard. That month Google pointed to better image handling and switched pictures on by default. It began routing them through its own secure proxy servers instead of the original hosts. MarketingLand noted that email marketers could no longer learn a recipient's IP address or device type this way. Wired countered that senders could still see when a message was first opened, because loading an image forces a callback to the original server.

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• 3. The Storage Race

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  On the 1st of April 2005, the first anniversary of the launch, Gmail doubled its space to two gigabytes. Georges Harik, the product management director for Gmail, said that Google would "keep giving people more space forever." The promise was tested by competitors. In October 2007, after recent moves by Yahoo and Microsoft, the allowance rose to 4 gigabytes.

  On the 24th of April 2012, Google lifted the figure from 7.5 to 10 gigabytes, adding the words "and counting" as it unveiled Google Drive. Then, on the 13th of May 2013, storage was pooled across Gmail, Google Drive and Google+ Photos. Each user received 15 gigabytes to share among the three.

  The 15th of August 2018 brought Google One, a monthly subscription for buying extra space shared among Gmail, Drive and Google Photos. As of 2021-15 gigabytes remained free, and personal plans stretched up to 2 terabytes.

  Individual messages have their own ceiling. At first, a message and all its attachments could not exceed 25 megabytes. In March 2017, Google allowed Gmail to receive messages of up to 50 megabytes, while the sending limit stayed at 25. Anyone with a bigger file can insert it from Google Drive instead.

  Business customers sit on a different scale. Under Google Workspace, storage shared with Drive is either 30 gigabytes or unlimited, depending on the plan.

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• 4. One Page, Many Faces

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  Kevin Fox, Gmail's interface designer, wanted people to feel they were always on a single page where only parts of it changed. Search and conversation threading were the heart of that idea. Threading grouped the back-and-forth messages between two or more people onto one screen, and competitors later copied it. Labels, a kind of tag, took the place of folders and allowed more flexible sorting. Filters could organize, delete or forward incoming mail automatically, and importance markers flagged the messages that mattered most.

  In November 2011, Google began rolling out a simpler, more minimalist look to match its other products. The redesign brought a streamlined conversation view, adjustable density, better themes, a resizable navigation bar with visible labels and contacts, and improved search. People previewed it for months and could switch back, until March 2012, when Google removed that option for everyone.

  The May 2013 update added tabs that sorted the inbox into Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums. Anyone who disliked them could switch the whole feature off. A new web design arrived in April 2018, built on Material Design and Google's Product Sans font. It introduced Confidential mode, which lets a sender set an expiry date on a sensitive message or revoke it entirely. Integrated rights management and two-factor authentication came with it.

  On the 16th of November 2020, Google announced new settings for smart features and personalization, covering tools like Smart Compose and Smart Reply across Gmail, Chat and Meet. On the 28th of July 2022, it rolled out Material You to all Gmail users.

  The search bar covers more than mail. Contacts, Google Drive files, Google Calendar events and Google Sites all turn up there. In May 2012, search began offering auto-complete predictions drawn from the user's own emails. One gap remains: Gmail cannot match word fragments, though workarounds exist.

  Gmail Labs opened on the 5th of June 2008 as a place to try experimental features. Users could switch each one on or off and send feedback, which also showed engineers how popular it was. Successful experiments such as Undo Send often graduate into formal settings, but every Labs feature stays open to termination at any time.

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• 5. A Billion Users

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  In June 2012, Google announced that Gmail had 425 million active users worldwide. By May 2015 the figure was 900 million, and 75 percent of them used the service on mobile devices. In February 2016 it passed one billion active users, and in July 2017 it passed 1.2 billion. Back in May 2014, Gmail had become the first app on the Google Play Store to reach one billion installations on Android.

  Quartz reported in August 2014 on 150 companies in the United States, drawn from three groups. They were the Fortune 50, mid-size tech and media companies, and startups from the latest Y Combinator class. Only one Fortune 50 company used Gmail, and that was Google itself. Among mid-sized companies the share was 60 percent, and among startups it reached 92 percent.

  In November 2014, the Android app learned to send and receive mail from non-Gmail addresses, such as Yahoo! Mail and Outlook.com, through POP or IMAP. Native apps exist for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android phones. In November 2016, the iOS app received its first complete visual overhaul in nearly four years. It added more color and sleeker transitions, along with requested features such as faster search with instant results and spelling suggestions, and Swipe to Archive/Delete.

  May 2017 brought phishing protection to Android. Media outlets noticed that Google announced it on the same day as a widespread phishing attack hit Gmail and Google Docs. Later that month came Smart Reply for Android and iOS. The feature had started in Google's Inbox app. It scans a message with machine intelligence and offers three replies that the user can edit before sending. English came first, then Spanish, with other languages to follow. In 2019, dark mode reached the mobile apps.

  As of 2015, the interface spoke 72 languages, from Arabic and Basque to Welsh and Zulu. In October 2012, Google added more than 100 virtual keyboards, transliterations and input method editors, so people were not limited by the language of their keyboard. Handwriting input followed in October 2013. In August 2014, Gmail became the first major email provider to handle addresses with accent marks and letters from outside the Latin alphabet.

  A small design firm paid a curious price for the name. Gamil Design, a product and graphic design company in Raleigh, North Carolina, had a website that drew 3,000 hits a month before Gmail existed. In May 2004, a Google engineer who had mistakenly landed there several times asked whether traffic had risen. It had doubled. Two years later the site drew 600,000 hits a month, and the internet service provider wanted to charge more. Gamil put a message on its site: "You may have arrived here by misspelling Gmail. We understand. Typing fast is not our strongest skill. But since you've typed your way here, let's share."

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• 6. Spin-Offs and Add-Ons

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  In August 2010, Google released a plugin that put telephone calls inside Gmail's chat window. It had no official name at first, and Google called it both "Google Voice in Gmail chat" and "Call Phones in Gmail". The service logged over one million calls in 24 hours. In March 2014, Google discontinued Google Voice and replaced it with functionality from Google Hangouts.

  On the 9th of February 2010, Google launched Google Buzz, a social tool tied to Gmail for sharing links, media and status updates. It was discontinued in October 2011 and replaced by new functions in Google+. In December 2011, Gmail was integrated with Google+ so that all of a person's Google information sat under one account with a centralized Google+ profile. Backlash followed. From July 2015, Google dropped the requirement for a Google+ account and kept only a private Google account with no public profile.

  In May 2013, Google announced a link between Google Wallet and Gmail that let people send money as email attachments. Only the sender needed a Gmail account. The recipient could use any address. The feature carried no transaction fees but did cap the amount that could be sent. It began on the web and reached the Android app in March 2017 for people in the United States.

  Google Trips, released in September 2016, built travel cards from information in a user's Gmail messages. A card could hold itinerary details such as plane tickets and car rentals, and it suggested activities, food, drinks and attractions based on location, time and interests. The app also worked offline. An April 2017 update added bus and train tickets, manual entry of reservations and sharing. If the recipient also had Google Trips, the details appeared in that person's app automatically.

  In October 2014, Google introduced Inbox by Gmail on an invitation-only basis. The Gmail team built it as a "completely different type of inbox" for people struggling with distractions, buried information and more email than ever. Bundles sorted messages of the same topic together. Highlights surfaced key details, while reminders, assists and snooze helped users handle mail at the right moment. Inbox became publicly available in May 2015. In September 2018, Google announced its end, since most key features had moved into standard Gmail. It was discontinued on the 2nd of April 2019.

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• 7. Guarding the Inbox

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  Ariel Rideout, a Google engineer, explained why secure HTTPS was at first the default only on the login page: it made "your mail slower". Users could switch to secure mode manually after logging in. In July 2008, Google added a toggle in the settings menu to make that easier. In 2007, it fixed a cross-site scripting flaw that could have let attackers collect information from contact lists. In January 2010, HTTPS became the default for every user.

  In January 2010, Google also detected a "highly sophisticated" cyberattack on its infrastructure that originated in China. It targeted Chinese human rights activists, but accounts belonging to European, American and Chinese activists had been "routinely accessed by third parties". Google's investigation found that "at least" 20 other large companies, from sectors including finance, technology, media and chemicals, had been targeted too. Google worked with US authorities and advised individuals to install anti-virus and anti-spyware software and be careful with links.

  In June 2012, a new banner began warning users of an unauthorized account compromise by state-sponsored attackers. In March 2014, Google announced that every email sent or received would travel over an encrypted HTTPS connection, and that all mail was encrypted while moving internally through its systems. Whenever possible, Gmail also uses transport layer security. On the web and on Android, a closed or open red padlock shows whether a message was encrypted. Gmail scans all incoming and outgoing mail for viruses, and some file types, including executables, cannot be sent.

  At the end of May 2017, Google said that machine learning now identified phishing and spam with 99.9 percent accuracy. To get there, Gmail selectively delays about 0.05 percent of all messages for deeper analysis. In November 2020, Google began redirecting clicked links in official Gmail clients through its own servers for click-time protection.

  Two-step verification adds a second check when someone logs in from a new device. It can be a push notification on an Android or iOS phone, a code from the Google Authenticator app, or a physical security key in a USB port. Security keys became an option in October 2014.

  An algorithm can also lock an account for between one minute and 24 hours when it detects abnormal usage that may mean a compromise. Listed triggers include downloading large amounts of mail through a POP or IMAP client in a short period, sending many messages that fail to deliver, using software that logs in automatically, and leaving multiple instances of Gmail open.

  Google also works with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to find children suffering abuse around the world. Together they build a database of abuse images, and each image receives a unique numerical hash. Google scans Gmail for those hashes and reports matches to the appropriate national authorities.

  Reliability has been tested too. Gmail suffered at least seven outages in 2009. On the 28th of February 2011, a bug made accounts appear empty, and Google wrote in a blog post that "email was never lost". Further outages struck on the 17th of April 2012, the 24th of September 2013, the 24th of January 2014, the 29th of January 2019 and the 20th of August 2020. Google says Gmail remains more than 99.9 percent available and that it wants such events to stay notable for their rarity.

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• 8. Privacy on Trial

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  Thirty-one privacy and civil liberties organizations wrote to Google in 2004, calling on it to suspend Gmail until the privacy problems were addressed. They asked Google to clarify its data retention policies and how it shared data between business units. They also objected to a plan to scan the text of every incoming message to place ads, arguing that scanning confidential mail to insert third-party ads violates the implicit trust of an email provider. Critics raised further worries. A machine reading mail could let Google keep unlimited information forever, and emails from people on other providers were scanned even though those senders never agreed to Google's terms.

  In March 2011, a former Gmail user in Texas sued Google, claiming that scanning messages to serve relevant ads violated privacy. In July 2012, California residents filed two class action lawsuits against Google and Yahoo!. They claimed the companies illegally intercepted emails that outside senders wrote to Gmail and Yahoo! recipients. A motion filed by Google's attorneys conceded that Gmail users have "no expectation of privacy".

  In August 2013, the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog uncovered a court filing in which Google said no "reasonable expectation" of confidentiality exists among Gmail users. Google compared the situation to a letter to a business colleague, saying a sender "cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter". The same month, a Google spokesperson said the company took Gmail privacy and security concerns "very seriously".

  Google changed its terms of service for Gmail in April 2014 to spell out its scanning. The new text said automated systems analyze emails to provide personally relevant features, including customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, replied that the "really dangerous things" were in Analytics, advertising cookies and the profiling of individual accounts.

  In 2013, Microsoft launched an advertising campaign attacking Google for scanning messages. It claimed that its own Outlook service does not scan message contents, and a Microsoft spokesperson called privacy "Google's kryptonite". Google answered that no humans read mail to show advertisements and that an automated algorithm picks the ads. The New York Times cited Google supporters who called the Microsoft ads distasteful.

  The February 2010 launch of Google Buzz drew immediate criticism because it publicly shared details of users' contacts unless the default settings were changed. In January 2014, a new feature let users email people with Google+ accounts without knowing their addresses. Marc Rotenberg, President of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, called it "troubling" and compared it to the original flaw in Buzz.

  In June 2016, Julia Angwin of ProPublica wrote that Google had deleted a clause in its privacy policy promising not to combine DoubleClick browsing cookie data with personally identifiable information from its other services. That allowed one unified ad profile per user. After publication, Google told ProPublica that the merge would not include Gmail keywords in ad targeting.

  The ad scanning itself ended after more than a decade of argument. On the 23rd of June 2017, Google announced that later that year it would stop scanning email text to generate contextual ads and would rely on personal data from other Google services instead. The stated reason was to quell the concern of enterprise customers, who felt unsure how the free consumer version differed from the advertising-free paid one.

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