Google launched Gmail on April 1, 2004, initially offering 1 gigabyte of free storage.
At launch, Gmail's storage allowance was dramatically larger than many competing free email services. Google also promoted fast search, conversation views, and an advertising-supported model that displayed text advertisements related to message content.
The April 1 launch date led many people to suspect that Gmail was an April Fools' joke, especially because its 1 GB capacity seemed unusually generous at the time. Google invited users gradually at first, and Gmail remained invitation-only for several years before opening broadly.
Gmail is sometimes confused with Google's earlier email experiments or with Google Inbox, a later interface launched in 2014. Gmail became part of Google Workspace's productivity ecosystem and remains one of the company's best-known consumer services.