Google has been hit by a widespread outage that has locked users out of their email and other services.
Downdetector, a site that monitors online outages, shows issues hit the tech giant around 10:30am ET on Thursday.
Google, Gmail, Google Workspace, Google Cloud, and Google Drive are all experiencing outages, with major cities like New York, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco among the hardest hit.
Among Gmail users, the most common problem has been connecting to the server.
Many are unable to send or receive emails, access their inboxes, or use Gmail-linked features like scheduling events, managing contacts, or joining video calls.
Google Cloud users have experienced the same issues with logging into their accounts.
The cloud is a set of online tools and services provided by Google that helps businesses, developers, and individuals store data, run apps, and perform tasks over the internet instead of on their own computers or servers.
‘It’s widespread. Almost everywhere. Yes there is a problem and it needs to be fixed fast [because] people trying to do their jobs or other important stuff dependent on this service,’ a frustrated Google user explained.
Google and its various services have been affected by a widespread outage in the US on September 18 (Stock Image)
Despite widespread reports of login issues for hours, Google’s Workspace Status Dashboard did not announce any problems until 12:15pm ET.
The website tracks all Google services, including its Chrome browser, Google Docs, Gmail, and the company’s AI chatbot Gemini.
In a status update Thursday afternoon, Google revealed an ongoing incident impacting ChromeOS, Chrome, Google Chat, and Gmail.
However, many Google users disputed the dashboard’s claims of only minor problems, as more issues across the US began to emerge.
‘Their status page shows no incidents… but… we all know there’s a problem,’ one person commented on Downdetector.
‘Still having an issue here. Not OS related,’ another Google user revealed two hours after the outage began.
Many of the people affected by the outage were working in or attending class in schools throughout the US.
‘Google login servers are nuked for my school right now,’ one of the locked out users commented.
Google revealed that they were dealing with a widespread problem in the Chrome browser, ChromeOS, Gmail, and Google Chat Thursday afternoon
One person claimed that the issues with Google were not affecting anyone who was already logged into their accounts before the outage began Thursday morning.
‘All I can say is don’t log out if you have logged in successfully already,’ the Google user added.
By 11:30am ET, issues were also being reported in Texas, Oregon, Virginia, Idaho, Colorado, and Alabama.
