# Buggeration, Gmail has lost a load of my mail

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [September 13, 2007, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104 "2007-09-13T19:10:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/1 "2007-09-13T19:10:10Z")

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I’ve been recommending Gmail to all and sundry for ages. It truly is the best mail client I’ve ever used.

Well on Sept 6 I sent a conciliatory mail to a friend who’s in a bit of trouble, and I wanted to re-read it, and it’s not there. Lots of searching later, and viewing “all mail” and the trash (which I allow Gmail to empty automatically) I had to conclude, it’s simply gone. And I know I sent it as I CCed my wife, and she’s confirmed that it’s still in her “all mail” folder. Not only that, but several other mails pertaining to a website I run, that I hadn’t actioned yet, sent on or around the same day, have also disappeared.

Poo.

Anyone had this happen to them?

I’m presuming that, as a free service, there’s little chance of getting Google to investigate - is there?

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**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/2 "2007-09-13T19:19:06Z")

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[QUOTE=jjimm]  
I’ve been recommending Gmail to all and sundry for ages. It truly is the best mail client I’ve ever used.

Well on Sept 6 I sent a conciliatory mail to a friend who’s in a bit of trouble, and I wanted to re-read it, and it’s not there. Lots of searching later, and viewing “all mail” and the trash (which I allow Gmail to empty automatically) I had to conclude, it’s simply gone. And I know I sent it as I CCed my wife, and she’s confirmed that it’s still in her “all mail” folder. Not only that, but several other mails pertaining to a website I run, that I hadn’t actioned yet, sent on or around the same day, have also disappeared.

Poo.

Anyone had this happen to them?

I’m presuming that, as a free service, there’s little chance of getting Google to investigate - is there?  
[/QUOTE]

It has happened before. Last year Gmail lost the emails of about 60 people, although they ended up restoring them, and back in April Google accidentally disabled a bunch of gmail accounts, which led to lots of people having trouble retrieving some of their email. Your problem may or may not be unique to you, in any case it’s probably worth reporting to Google just in case.

Try this link [http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion](http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion)

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/3 "2007-09-13T19:43:01Z")

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Thanks for the link. I tried to subscribe and it crashed.

Is Google jumping the shark…? ☹

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**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/4 "2007-09-13T20:14:44Z")

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FWIW, I use Gmail all the time and haven’t had any issues.

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**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/5 "2007-09-13T20:34:34Z")

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[QUOTE=jjimm]

I’m presuming that, as a free service, there’s little chance of getting Google to investigate - is there?  
[/QUOTE]

They’ll be interested in your bug report. I’ve provided critical feedback on a couple of their products (Google Earth and some Google Labs thing I don’t remember) and the relevant developers responded. They are pretty good that way.

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**Author:** ![ASAKMOTSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/6 "2007-09-13T20:36:09Z")

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Everyone realizes that Gmail is listed as “beta”, right?

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**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/7 "2007-09-13T20:42:39Z")

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[QUOTE=ASAKMOTSD]  
Everyone realizes that Gmail is listed as “beta”, right?  
[/QUOTE]

😛

It’s stretching the limits of the whole Beta concept to a ridiculous extent. I’ve had my account since April 2004. It must be at version 0.999999999999 by now.

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**Author:** ![fisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@fisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fisha)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/8 "2007-09-13T21:42:55Z")

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Gmail has lost emails here and there of mine before. Rare, but it happens.

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/9 "2007-09-13T22:23:41Z")

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I sent a message via GMail to a friend a couple weeks back, to see if he was interested in a party the next day. He never got back to me, so I assumed he was too busy to check his email (and therefore too busy to go to the party) or just wasn’t interested.

He replied to it today. Apparently, it took two weeks to show up in his inbox. I don’t know if the problem was on my end, or on his, though.

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**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2007, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/10 "2007-09-14T03:55:31Z")

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Can’t you get gmail through POP? I would suggest doing that from now on (at least keep a copy locally somewhere) if you have work emails on there.

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**Author:** ![ASAKMOTSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2007, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buggeration-gmail-has-lost-a-load-of-my-mail/419104/11 "2007-09-14T14:56:19Z")

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[QUOTE=Struan]  
😛

It’s stretching the limits of the whole Beta concept to a ridiculous extent. I’ve had my account since April 2004. It must be at version 0.999999999999 by now.  
[/QUOTE]

Well, this is as opposed to Microsoft releasing barely tested code for us all to debug in production. 😉
