What year was Google's Gmail launched?

Google launched Gmail in 2004, introducing the service publicly on April 1 as a limited beta release.

The date initially caused confusion because Google was famous for April Fools’ announcements. Gmail was real, however, and its launch stood out because it offered 1 gigabyte of storage—far more than many competing webmail services provided at the time. The service also emphasized fast search and an interactive interface rather than forcing users to reload a page for every action.

Google engineer Paul Buchheit began developing Gmail in 2001 under the internal codename Caribou. Before its public debut, Google employees used it internally, and the project remained relatively secret. Early access was invitation-based, which helped Google expand the service gradually while it built the infrastructure needed to support large numbers of users.

Gmail remained in beta for years and officially exited beta status on July 7, 2009. That later milestone is sometimes mistaken for its launch year, but the service clearly debuted in 2004. Google later expanded Gmail with mobile apps, IMAP support, richer search, and integration with Google’s other services.