A number of users are reporting that Google’s email service Gmail is down.
Google confirmed to Mashable that it is looking into the issue and that only users with IMAP connections to Gmail are affected.
The earliest reports began trickling in around 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday, and a quick check of the status verification website DownDectector.com also indicates that Gmail is currently unavailable for some.
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An additional check of Google's Apps Status Dashboard currently shows Gmail as experiencing service interruption. The last major disruption of the service was back in January, when the service suffered two major outages over the course of two weeks.
The free email service had roughly 425 million monthly active users as of 2012, making it one of the leading webmail services in the U.S., along with Yahoo and Microsoft's Outlook (which was merged with Hotmail in 2013).
As Gmail has grown over the years, users have suffered through occasional service disruptions, but those issues are usually resolved within the same day. However, as Google has continued to tie more of its other services into the free webmail service -- such as Google Calendar, Hangouts (chat) and even search -- the reliability of the Gmail has become an increasingly vital issue for frequent users of the service.
Additional reporting by Samantha Murphy Kelly
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