Gmail turns into Gfail for e-mail users worldwide

Google's web-based e-mail service Gmail crashed earlier today, leaving millions of users around the world unable to send and receive messages.

Users attempting to log into their accounts this morning were greeted with server error messages. Google Apps users were also affected by the outage.

The technical problems started around 9.30am and are believed to have affected web users only, with access to Gmail still available via desktop inboxes and phones.

Google, which has apologised for the outage, has now resolved the issue although It has yet to say what caused it.

"Many of our users had difficulty accessing Gmail today. The problem is now resolved and users have had access restored. We know how important Gmail is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously, and we apologise for the inconvenience," the company said.

Gmail launched on April 1st 2004 in beta release and became fully available to the general public in February 2007.

The company says the web-based service has 'tens of millions of users' worldwide. Given that many of these are corporate users, the cost of the outage may run into millions.