Tens of thousands Gmail users found their accounts were, well, missing today in what Google calls an issue that affected "less than 0.02%" of its user base." The issue was noted by the tech giant yesterday at 3 p.m., and there hasn't been an update on the Google Dashboard since 10 p.m. What are the afflicted doing? Well, one Brooklyn woman is getting sympathy from her coworkers—not to mention amazement from her friends, "I'm like a unicorn. They're like 'wow, you're one of the people.' I feel like I won the unlucky lottery or something."
Julia West, a developer and entrepreneur, told the Observer, "I woke up pretty early yesterday morning, around 7 a.m. I always check my email on my phone when I wake up. I saw I had no email in my inbox when I normally have a bunch—I thought it was a mobile glitch. But then I sat down at noon and needed some notes and images from my email for work that I didn't have anywhere else... and everything was gone." She added, "I've always like, really trusted Google. They seem like they're incapable of losing data. I'm not worried that it'll be gone forever but it's a huge inconvenience for it to be taking so long... it's not the end of the world but it's a huge inconvenience. And scary."
Google told Fortune, "We have restored access for a third of those affected. The remaining 0.013% of accounts are being restored on an ongoing basis, and we expect the issue to be resolved for everyone within 12 hours. We're very sorry for the inconvenience caused." And if you want to backup your Gmail, here's how.
