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Product or service · Communication and community

Gmail, the 1 GB email announced on April 1 (2004)

Google announced Gmail on April 1, 2004: free search-based webmail with 1 gigabyte of storage per user. It began as a preview for a small group of testers and kept its beta label for more than five years.

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April 1, 2004

Gmail

Product or service · Communication and community · Active

sources · timeline 2000–2004

Interpretive reconstruction · Classic serif Early-2000s conventions: white background, small sans-serif text, dense blue links. Does not reproduce any Google page.

History

The April 1, 2004 announcement presents Gmail as a free search-based webmail service and highlights its storage: 1,000 megabytes, or 1 gigabyte, per user. A small group of users began testing the preview version that day. Larry Page is quoted saying Gmail solved all of his communication needs, and Sergey Brin admits that building it was more complicated than expected.

The announcement on April Fools' Day, a date Google had used for pranks since MentalPlex in 2000, is part of the product's story. On July 7, 2009 the official Gmail blog announced that the service was leaving beta. This record covers the launch; Gmail's evolution continues in later blocks.

Dates

  • April 1, 2004 Announcement · exact date [1]
  • July 7, 2009 General availability · exact date [2]

What the sources say

ClaimRecordConfidenceSources
Storage per user 1 GB (1,000 MB) 2 · Single primary source [1] primary
Launch format Preview for a small group of testers 2 · Single primary source [1] primary
Out of beta July 7, 2009 2 · Single primary source [2] primary

What the confidence levels mean

Names

  • Gmail — official name
  • Google Mail — localized name

Historical captures

No archived capture has been located for this record yet.

Sources

  1. Google Gets the Message, Launches Gmail — Google (press release), April 1, 2004. Source primary · accessed November 2, 2026 · look for a copy on the Internet Archive
  2. Gmail leaves beta, launches "Back to Beta" Labs feature — Keith Coleman — Official Gmail Blog, July 7, 2009. Source primary · accessed November 2, 2026 · look for a copy on the Internet Archive

What still needs documenting

  • Source for the invitation system
  • Reaction to the April 1 announcement
  • Portuguese launch and the Google Mail name in some countries

On GD

GD has followed Google since 2006. Search GD for “Gmail” (in Portuguese)

How to cite

"Gmail, the 1 GB email announced on April 1 (2004)", Google Museum (GD), https://gd.eurisko.com.br/museu/en/collection/gmail/, CC BY 4.0. Reviewed on November 2, 2026.

ID: gmail · Reviewed on November 2, 2026