“Gmail Is Shutting Down” — Google Shuts Down Rumors

The rumor started when an edited post started doing the rounds on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) claiming that Google is preparing to shut down Gmail.

The post claimed that after years of helping millions around the globe and connecting people, the journey of Gmail is finally coming to an end. It further said the service will shut down on August 1, 2024-and that after the said date, no user will be able to send or receive emails through their Gmail account.

The nature of the fake message and the formal tone made it very believable.

While Google has a history of shutting down products that didn't perform well, it has never closed down a running, successful product-and why should it? After all, Gmail is one of its best-performing products among Google Maps, Google search engine, and YouTube. Why would it even (remotely) consider pulling the plug on a product that's bringing in so much revenue?

Naturally, Gmail users were a little surprised and even scared about the longevity of years' worth of data they had stored on their Gmail accounts. The rumors spread like wildfire, and even Killed By Google, an X account that tracks all the products canceled by Google responded to the rumors and said it was true. The users were unhappy, of course, some even calling the move insane" while others reconfirmed the hoax.

Eventually, though, Google took notice of this unnecessary chaos and addressed the issue on X with a tweet saying Gmail is here to stay".

How Did These Rumours Originate?The origin of the edited post is still unknown, with some believing that the rumors started on TikTok. However, the bigger question is what triggered these rumors-perhaps the fact that Google took down an older version of Gmail recently?

Last year, the tech giant announced that it would be ending support for Gmail's HTML view-and this year in January, it officially did. However, this does not mean that Gmail is going away or that we cannot continue to use our Gmail account as usual-just that those who were using the HTML version will now have to use the standard version.

So, if this was the trigger, it was a clear case of jumping to conclusions" or maybe someone thought it would be funny to pull a prank on millions of people. But for those who have thousands of unsaved emails and attachments on Gmail and have linked their ID to a bunch of online sites, this was practically a nightmare.

The only Google product that is being well and truly shut down is Google Pay in the US-the service has been replaced by Google Wallet.

It's important to note that Google Pay will continue to operate as usual in India and Singapore. Please keep this in mind and don't panic-we don't want to cause another rumor!

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