Over the weekend a hundred and fifty thousand Gmail users discovered that their email accounts had been wiped clean. As well as the contents of their inboxes, users complained that their contacts, labels and folders had all been erased.
Google said in a statement that it’s working hard to restore normal operation, but it remains unclear whether or not Google will be able to get back all of the deleted data.
"A very small number users are having difficulty accessing their Gmail accounts, and in some cases once they're in, trouble viewing e-mails,” Google said in a statement.
"This is affecting less than .08% of our Gmail user base, and we've already fixed the problem for some users. Our engineers are working as quickly as possible and we hope to have everything back to normal as soon as possible. We're very sorry for the inconvenience."
Google has yet to address the glitch in a posting on the official Gmail blog, instead preferring to communicate with affected users via a Google Support forum thread and Google App Status dashboard.
Mike CH, a Google employee and Gmail Engineer posted the following message to the support boards:
The most recent update details that service has already been restored for some users and Google says it expects a resolution for all users “in the near future.” We’ll keep an eye out and update if Google gets around to posting anything official on its Gmail blog.
