Gmail was announced exactly one year ago, on the April Fool’s Day last year, and has forever changed the history of web mail. Well, at least in terms of mailbox size. I thought it was a joke last year, but no one is doubting its existence by now. It has became my secondary email account since I got mine June last year, and meanwhile it has grown so many new features – except it has not grown out its “beta” status.
Then I saw this when I logged in today:
Yes, 1295Mb! That’s an unannounced new feature which Google has just given me 30% more space! Even though I’ve only used 3Mb so far (so pathetic), but that extra 295Mb has just made myself so confident that I will never burst my inbox!
Or was that an April Fool?
Update: Thanks to the comment by Joey. I checked the login page of Gmail and now everything is clear.
… starting today, we’re beginning the roll-out of our new and top secret Infinity+1 storage plan.
And then there is a funky chart comparing the storage between different webmail providers, theoretical limit, and Gmail’s infinity + 1.
No, this isn’t an April Fool. You’ve probably discovered this by now, but Google has announced it is ramping everyone up to 2 GB. As I write this, my GMail account is showing 1447 MB of space available.
There’s also a little counter on the GMail signin screen showing the current level of storage for every user. Pretty slick.
Joey,
Thanks for the pointer, and I am glad that I am wrong! Google seems to make serious PRs around April Fools, and I guess this time is to combat Yahoo! with their recent 1Gb mailbox announcement.