Which Google email service launched on April 1, 2004? The answer is Gmail.
Google launched Gmail on April 1, 2004, initially as an invitation-only beta service. The date made the announcement seem like an April Fools’ joke, especially because Gmail offered 1 gigabyte of storage—far more than many competing webmail services provided at the time.
Gmail was designed around Google’s strengths in search and organization. It introduced fast searching through messages, conversation threading, and a system that reduced the need for manually sorting email into folders. These features helped make large email archives easier to manage.
The original service was called Gmail and used the gmail.com domain in many countries, although trademark issues meant some users initially received addresses at googlemail.com. Gmail remained in beta for years and was officially released to the public in 2007. Proton Mail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook.com are separate services, not Google’s 2004 launch.