Gmail Performance Issues

I've been suffering from Gmail performance issues for the past several weeks. I click on a mail message and I get the "loading" message for ten, twenty, or thirty seconds. When I hit send and archive, it can take thirty seconds or more (sometimes a lot more) to complete that process.

So I've taken to having three of four tabs open in Gmail and switching back and forth to keep going while one process is hung up. I thought my issues were my own. I have a 13gb mail file and run a number of Gmail add-ons. I figure that my mailbox size is too big. Or one or more of the add-ons are causing the issues. So I suffered in silence.

But I've been reading other blogs talking about the same things. Here's a post from last week from Gabriel Weinberg that got my attention. Maybe my issues aren't my own. I am curious what all of you have been experiencing.

It's interesting that within a week of Gabriel's post, Google contacted him and moved him to a different server and now his performance issues are resolved. I'm raising my hand for the same treatment.

I want to be clear that I am not bashing Google for these performance issues. I think the value proposition that all the webmail providers offer is amazing. It can't be easy to operate services like this with tens of millions (or way more) at scale without the occasional scaling issues. But I am eager to find out if my issues are my own or if they are Google's. And if they are Google's, I am eager to see if this blog post works out as well as Gabriel's.

#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Gregorylent

    and then there is twitter, 140 millioin bucks, amazon s3, and oops, something’s gone wrong, please try again later, or twitter is overcapacity, or technical fault, please refresh the page .. and loads slower than a beijing trafic jam …this free internet ain’t what it used to be …

    1. fredwilson

      i think you are overstating the issue. not specifically wrt twitter. i amtoo close to that one to be objective. but the open internet is very muchwhat it used to be, and i think actually better than ever

  2. Gerald Buckley

    Have you tried accessing your gmail acct from another computer (with no add-ons)? That will tell you pronto if the problem resides on your side or theirs.

    1. fredwilson

      yes, i have the problem on multiple machines. i use about five different machines (if you can call the iPad a machine) to access gmail.but your suggestion is a good one. i’ll take the time to see if there are material differences in performances across all of these machines

      1. Jay Cuthrell

        Try from another network provider too — while it won’t address your home issue it would remove another variable. It is highly likely that you are being served by a specific path to a specific center for your specific Gmail. I use Gmail and Google Apps and will VPN to get around issues. Try that if you have access to a VPN that isn’t using split tunnel (i.e. scoped WAN vs. full WAN).I’ve found that AT&T IP access has been horrible compared to Level 3 lately but have also noted issues with Time Warner. A different network might take you to a different data center for your Gmail experience. Different may not be better of course :)I’ve opened tickets about Gmail (paid perk/benefit of going Apps Premeir) recently but I’m confident that Gmail team is aware a great many things at any given time beyond my concern — and the Google Apps team has been showing more of the Postini tools — which is very interesting to me.

  3. Adrian

    I tried to move my business email to gmail and after getting the interface just right for me I have been very disappointed by the slow receive times.Incoming Pop3 emails are not received quickly with delays of 5-15 minutes and up to an hour sometimes, which makes it unusable. This is well documented on the Gmail help forums and there seems to be no response from Google. Its obviously a free service but Google do promote it and put adverts in the page.Have gone back to a desktop email client and will wait to see what happens. I read of one man who persuaded a whole company to move to gmail and is now not a popular person due to all these delays.

  4. muratcannoyan

    I have IMAP enabled and use Rapportive. The mail file is about 5gb and have to say for the most part speed has not been an issue. Very snappy.

  5. kidmercury

    the limitations of the software as a service model will increasingly be experienced. i stand by my fellow kook richard stallman in his dislike towards this model of innovation. and as federation continues to become the hot new buzzword driving VC investments, the clock for software as a service is ticking. even for google.

    1. Mike

      “the clock for software as a service is ticking.”Isn’t the trend towards SaaS as opposed to away from it? Why do you believe it is a dying model?

      1. kidmercury

        the trend has certainly been towards it, though open source communities have quietly grown in the background as well. IMHO the problem with SaaS is that it ultimately leads to companies that do small algorithmic processing in large amounts. i think we are at a point though where the cost of making improvements on this trajectory outweighs the benefit derived. i also think that google has won this trajectory.IMHO there is more of an opportunity in finding systems that can process fewer quantities of high value transactions.

        1. Adrian Bye

          you don’t think there’s massive economies of scale to be gained by having providers like google manage email vs everyone doing it on their own?

          1. kidmercury

            not everyone doing it on their own, but rather uniting in groups where it makes sense. for instance, rather than use gmail, i’d rather use fredmail, which would be an email system for fredland members that operated in accordance with the email preferences and technology philosophy of the fredland community, as determined by the fredland government.i think the troubles we’re seeing even the almighty google face reveal that there are limits to economies of scale — that at some point the cost of adding one additional user is greater than the benefits derived from doing so.

          2. ShanaC

            So I briefly worked in a non-profit before it went under :(. They used gmail. How would fredmail help the non-profit? Part of the problem of the web is that you can have mutiple part of your personality dispersed.I don’t completely diagree with you. it’s why gmail plugins +labs seem so useful useful- single entities that support elements of what you do help- because not all of us are the same….

  6. paulmcenany

    Yes, it’s been a nightmare. I finally started asking around about it over the past week or so and apparently it’s pretty common. So, Google, switch me, too. 🙂

  7. maxkalehoff

    The corporate gmail at my company has been acting the same for the past few weeks.

  8. RichardF

    I was experiencing that issue a few weeks back on a personal gmail address but it seems to have cleared itself without reporting it. Never had a problem with company email hosted on google apps. That’s been rock solid for over a year now.

  9. Tereza

    I have been having colossal gmail issues all week and it’s driving me up the wall. Consider my hand raised.OMG, I just hit the “1000 Comment” mark.

    1. fredwilson

      congrats Tereza. nice milestone!

    2. Aaron Klein

      I hit 666 comments and had to find something else to comment on right away… 😉

    3. ShanaC

      wait until you get over 2000

      1. Tereza

        Is that a dare?:-)

        1. ShanaC

          dee double dare.

          1. Stellar Ad

            nobody cares about your comments you know

          2. fredwilson

            i do

  10. eran shir

    Sadly, not only your own. I’ve been sufferring for quite a while now too.Researching into it, it seems there is a very big difference inoperation between storing and using one huge index (ala websearch) andusing tens of millions of tiny indices (ala gmail) and surprisingly,running the index locally will be a better design solution.Hopefully the gmail team (they are great) will find the right path tocontinue scaling. In the meantime, what I tend to do that helpssometime is just repress the button. In many times clicking again onthe send button helps.Eran

  11. John Frankel

    The anser is for Gmail to provider service transparency, and improve performance. Just because it is “free” does net mean that Google can benefit unless customers are consistently impressed by the offering. Customers invest their time, not their money (unless they upgrade) and Google gains brand loyalty, the opportunity to sell more services, as well as a plethora of information.Google has to understand that offering “free” does not mean it can offer sub-standard, or deterioration over time. Freemium is also not about bait and switch. Freemium is about building brand, trust, goodwill and the right to have the customer consider buying other services or giving value in other ways.Do not get me wrong, I depend on the “free” services of Google, but likewise Google depends on the patronage of myself and millions like me. They cannot afford to ignore these issues.

    1. Morgan Warstler

      “transparency and improve performance.”+1I’d actually like to see what they’d charge for a personal CDN, meaning move all my data up next to me (Austin) in the cloud, and then if I log in elsewhere move it over to follow me.

  12. falicon

    Yes, I have quietly had the same issues (especially long times on sending and archiving more than anything else)…I wonder what the tipping point issue is (Buzz and the piggy-backing into my email that I didn’t even want maybe?)…I’ve been using gmail for years without any problems, so it’s got to be something recent that’s changed (and I doubt that it’s just the number of users since google is very used to scaling).

  13. Ronen Mendezitsky

    Yes, I absolutely been having problems with gmail lately. Just a few days ago, I tried sending my brother some files (small ones) while he was at school. When I tried to email the files through the gmail website, it got stuck forever and did not send anything.When I tried sending the files through Apple Mail, while using the same email, the files got sent quickly and had no problem. I have no idea what this means, on one hand, the gmail account works, since I use it flawlessly through Apple Mail every day, however, through the gmail website, it just won’t work.

  14. OurielOhayon

    i observed similar inconsistencies. But the amazing thing is that from the iPad on the mail client Gmail works fast than from the web version. no idea why

    1. William Mougayar

      Peut-être it’s because the mobile version is lighter I had similar experience on iPad and iPhone

  15. Norbert Mayer-Wittmann

    The web was designed to be distributed. I cannot fathom why people continue to resist this. Even when there are *obvious* signs that when everyone uses the same service, the quality of the service is severely diminished — still people seem to think there is some advantage to using the same service as a billion other people are using. I find it very difficult to wrap my head around this strange predisposition that people apparently have which makes them think there’s something cool about standing in a long line.

    1. kidmercury

      there is the network effects argument as for why email should be cloud-ified. but IMHO we need to start thinking about how to create more meaningful clouds.

  16. Sherman Dickman

    Or you could simply use a desktop client like Postbox, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. Then a copy of your email is cached locally and is then searchable, usable, etc.

    1. Fernando Gutierrez

      I sometimes use Thunderbird, but just to have a backup or move emails between Gmail/GApps accounts, but I think that nothing beats Gmail search.

  17. Dan Cornish

    This is the reason why there will always smaller paid services. Google does not make much money from their users. Support is difficult to obtain. A smaller specialized vendor who charges for their service will ALWAYS be more responsive.

  18. Vasudev Ram

    Fred,since you say that you use a lot of Gmail add-ons, you might want to try disabling them one by one (if you haven’t tried that already), and checking if the performance improves after each add-on is removed. Also, I’m not sure what you mean by “Gmail add-on” – Labs or third-party ones or both? Earlier, I would have thought you meant Gmail Labs features only, but since you mentioned in a recent post of yours (IIRC) that you use Etacts with Gmail, maybe you mean that kind of add-on (I haven’t checked out Etacts so don’t know exactly what it is).In either case, disabling them one by one may help to isolate the cause of the problem. Then if it seems to be due to a third-party add-on like Etacts, you could talk to them and they may be able to fix it (possibly together with Google). If it’s a Labs feature, you could stop using that feature, or send a support request to Google for it. Google does document that if Gmail starts having problems, try disabling the Labs features. You have the option to disable Labs features selectively, or all of them at one go, even temporarily, by changing the Gmail URL that you use (without even logging out and back into Gmail). In Gmail, see under Settings -> Labs:”If (when) a Labs feature breaks, and you’re having trouble loading your inbox, there’s an escape hatch. Use https://mail.google.com/mai…. “Remove the dot after the 0 in the above URL.HTH,Vasudev

    1. Vasudev Ram

      P.S. But I agree with you and Gabriel – I’ve been having Gmail performance issues too, as have others I know. I’m not bashing them either – it’s a great achievement to have even got to this level of scale with Gmail, considering the number of users it has, and the size of the mailbox they provide. However, the performance problems are only going to get worse going forward, because over time, users’ mailbox sizes are going to increase, and so will the number of Gmail users. Maybe Google should try some lateral thinking on this one ..

    2. paramendra

      Another savior.

    3. fredwilson

      thanks, i will disable all my add-ons and see what happens

  19. Roger Simons

    Perhaps they should charge a small fee for those who’d like a higher performance level guarantee?I’d pay.

    1. paramendra

      They already do, have for years. Go ahead and pay.

  20. Jon Smirl

    Are you using OpenDNS or some other alternative DNS service? If you are trying switching to your ISP’s DNS. Google uses the location of your DNS server to tell your PC which mail server is closest. For example I am in Boston and the OpenDNS servers are in SF. If I switch to them I get a gmail host in SF. If I use my FIOS DNS server I get an east coast gmail server. This is true for CDNs too.Gmail also seems to have some growing pains with switching everyone over to SSL connections. I can’t even imagine how much CPU it is taking to encrypt every email session.Mail delays are usually the result of the virus scanning queue getting backed up.

    1. ShanaC

      That’s useful…I use them.

    2. David Ulevitch

      Jon,I’d like to understand if this is really happening to you, since this would be the first I’ve heard of this issue with gmail and OpenDNS. We have 9 datacenters in the US and more internationally. If you’re in Boston, you should be talking to one of our datacenters in New York, which coincidentally is at 111 8th Ave, the same spot as a Google POP. We also peer with them directly there.If you’re routing to San Francisco, something is very wrong.

      1. Jon Smirl

        I have not tried OpenDNS recently so you may have resolved the problems. I used to have Comcast. Comcast’s DNS was always going down so I was using OpenDNS when it was first introduced. At that time I was having routing problems with it. Later FIOS came to my neighborhood. The FIOS DNS servers have never failed so I have no need to switch off from them.My friends that travel tell me that OpenDNS doesn’t work internationally and you have to disable it outside the US. If not, you get routed to CDN servers in the US instead of whatever country you are in.Is it possible to build a web page to test where OpenDNS (and other DNS services) will route to? I don’t think there is a web API for initiating a client side trace route. I’ve seen apps that will measure the impact of DNS on CDN routing.

      2. Jon Smirl

        The local DNS is using my local FIOS DNS node. For Akamai Open DNS routed me to the same place, for Amazon it routed me differently.====== testing : profile.ak.fbcdn.net Akamai ===========testing : OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222 ) 77.67.87.91PING 77.67.87.91 (77.67.87.91) 56(84) bytes of data.— 77.67.87.91 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 17.977/19.991/22.838/1.632 ms———————————-testing : Google ( 8.8.8.8 ) 96.17.156.56PING 96.17.156.56 (96.17.156.56) 56(84) bytes of data.— 96.17.156.56 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 14.492/14.911/15.406/0.334 ms———————————-testing : default ( 192.168.1.1 ) 77.67.91.75PING 77.67.91.75 (77.67.91.75) 56(84) bytes of data.— 77.67.91.75 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 13.909/14.574/16.971/1.206 ms———————————-=========================================== testing : cdn.twitbooth.com Amazon Cloudfront ===========testing : OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222 ) 216.137.33.103PING 216.137.33.103 (216.137.33.103) 56(84) bytes of data.— 216.137.33.103 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 18.189/20.526/22.183/1.831 ms———————————-testing : Google ( 8.8.8.8 ) 204.246.169.18PING 204.246.169.18 (204.246.169.18) 56(84) bytes of data.— 204.246.169.18 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 10.801/11.687/12.438/0.608 ms———————————-testing : default ( 192.168.1.1 ) 204.246.169.117PING 204.246.169.117 (204.246.169.117) 56(84) bytes of data.— 204.246.169.117 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4006msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 10.942/11.864/12.573/0.655 ms———————————-=====================================

      3. Jon Smirl

        =========================================== testing : http://www.google.com Google ===========testing : OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222 ) 208.69.32.230PING 208.69.32.230 (208.69.32.230) 56(84) bytes of data.— 208.69.32.230 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4006msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 20.844/21.848/23.230/0.797 ms———————————-testing : Google ( 8.8.8.8 ) 66.249.90.104PING 66.249.90.104 (66.249.90.104) 56(84) bytes of data.— 66.249.90.104 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 13.005/14.269/15.415/0.810 ms———————————-testing : default ( 192.168.1.1 ) 66.249.81.104PING 66.249.81.104 (66.249.81.104) 56(84) bytes of data.— 66.249.81.104 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 13.812/14.738/15.675/0.645 ms———————————-=========================================== testing : gmail.google.com GMail ===========testing : OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222 ) 64.233.169.100PING 64.233.169.100 (64.233.169.100) 56(84) bytes of data.— 64.233.169.100 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4001msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 22.294/25.070/27.357/1.961 ms———————————-testing : Google ( 8.8.8.8 ) 64.233.169.100PING 64.233.169.100 (64.233.169.100) 56(84) bytes of data.— 64.233.169.100 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4006msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 21.397/24.038/27.541/2.290 ms———————————-testing : default ( 192.168.1.1 ) 72.14.204.113PING 72.14.204.113 (72.14.204.113) 56(84) bytes of data.— 72.14.204.113 ping statistics —5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 22.877/24.518/27.110/1.518 ms———————————-=====================================

      4. Jon Smirl

        To explain what I posted… I used three different DNS services to tell me the shortest path to various CDNs (google.com, gmail, Akamai, Amazon). I’m not an expert on DNS but the results are like this:====== testing : Google ===========OpenDNS 21.848 ms* GoogleDNS 14.269 ms* VerizonDNS 15.675 ms====== testing : GMail ===========* OpenDNS 25.070 ms – New York* GoogleDNS 24.038 ms – New YorkVerizonDNS 24.518 ms – Washington, DC====== testing : Akamai ===========OpenDNS 19.991 ms* GoogleDNS 14.911 ms* VerizonDNS 14.574 ms====== testing : Amazon Cloudfront ===========OpenDNS 20.526 ms* GoogleDNS 11.687 ms* VerizonDNS 11.864 msGoogleDNS found the closest server every time. Verizon made one mistake – it is sending my Gmail to Washington, DC instead of New York. OpenDNS got the Gmail right, but didn’t pick optimal servers for the other three. Based on these results, I’m going to try switching my DNS over to GoogleDNS and see if it helps fix my gmail performance problems.

    3. fredwilson

      i don’t use opendns. i tried it for a while but went back to my isp’s dns service

  21. mpstaton

    I’ve had some hangs. But recently I’ve learned all the keyboard shortcuts as second nature and that changed my life.

    1. paramendra

      You might be the savior.

    2. ShanaC

      Learning them and they help so so much.

  22. David Binetti

    I use both the general gmail and google apps email for my company (free version). They have both suffered in the past few weeks, but the apps version is much worse. Performance also is worse on iphone than on desktop.

  23. Tci123

    Me too. Last few months service has slowed. Would take 4 min to get mail. Ditto for google docs. Have had gmail since start and only recently has service been below par. tom

  24. maverickny

    Raising my hand for that issue too!Have been very frustrated with “loading” issues for several weeks now. Also, logging out even on my own computer gives me a weird error message that it couldn’t log me out due to “time out”.Oh and calendar seems to be a bit borked some days too. Frustrating.

    1. Wesley Verhoeve

      I’m being logged out randomly too and it was freaking me out at first when it wouldn’t let me back in. I thought I had been hacked.

  25. Torquemada Disqus

    You need to complete disable Buzz including removing your Google Profile. The way Buzz was integrated into GMail is causing substantial reliability and availability issues.

    1. fredwilson

      i will try that

  26. RR

    well i am also having this problems and another one which is when i open documents from gmail in firefox it is not working the page font is too large and is not scrollable i dunno what is the problem yet but if any one have the same please tell me

    1. Fernando Gutierrez

      I was having problems to view pdf docs without downloading them, also in Firefox. About a week ago it started to work again.

  27. Alex Farcet

    My inbox was looking empty the other day (the strange sadness which comes with an empty inbox…) when I noticed that gmail wasn’t uploading mails from my other accounts. The “Last checked” info under Settings / Accounts and Imports / Check mail using POP3 said two of my accounts hadn’t been checked for 15+ hours… as far as I can see there’s no way to change the frequency manually so I have to check every now and then and hit the “Check mail now” link.

  28. Wesley Verhoeve

    Aha! same gmail issues here. *raises hand*I also employ the same technique of having several tabs open, so annoying.

    1. Eric Friedman

      Same here Wes – hoping there is a global resolution not just one off fixes.

  29. TJ

    As of today I’m using 23305 MB of my 25600 MB Google Apps Premier mailbox.It kind of sucks, speed wise. I mean, I also use a lot of their Labs items and Gist so I’m not expecting light speed and all but really, 45 seconds to open a conversation from a Multiple Inbox search? 25 seconds to send a 5 MB email? And whenever I have attachments that range in the 15-25 MB range “something breaks” and Google sends the email twice (I never click Send twice or anything like that, it only shows up once in my Sent mail but twice for my recipients).Once I got past the 11 GB mark my performance stared decaying. I figured it was still decent, considering the sheer amount of data. It’s had ups and downs and after contacting support they made it a lot faster for me (this was about 7 months ago, and I basically asked what the hell is going on). They didn’t exactly say what they did but I did feel it “move faster”. I’m probably going to be sending them another support request pretty soon now, if performance continues decaying as it has of late, but I’ve been desperately hoping for an early migration to the new “Google Apps” infrastructure (see [1]) because a) I’m hoping it’s faster and b) apparently that’s the only way I’ll get to buy more space for my account.[1] http://googleenterprise.blo…[2] http://www.google.com/suppo

    1. fredwilson

      sounds like huge mailboxes are an issue

  30. Joshua Baer

    I have been experiencing this too and it’s causing me to use Mail.app again, accessing a gmail over IMAP where the performance issues are hidden behind the cache. I can’t wait for the upcoming consolidated mailbox and threaded messages in the next version of Mail on iPhone.

    1. John Frankel

      JoshI totally agree – I use Gmail as my back-end, but Mail.app and its equivalent on every device that I access mail with – I miss out having access to the Googley Labs goodness, but have found that IMAP saves me thinking Google is slow.That being said Google Docs has had similar hanging issues of late. Really annoying. This is the cost of free, I guess.

      1. fredwilson

        i really like the web interface. i’m not eager to move off of it

        1. John Frankel

          Maybe there is a market for someone to build a client that mimics the web interface? How difficult would that be? What would it mean for the elegance and simplicity and promise of web based apps?

          1. davenaff

            +1 great idea.

  31. lance

    Like you I am not bashing GOOG, I run several different email accounts through Gmail. But after trying to figure out why an important message did not make it my way it seems that the account, through no action of my own, has completely stopped functioning. And when using a mail client the number of security certificate exceptions seems to be going up at a rapid pace.

  32. Elie Seidman

    Solution = Appriver hosted Exchange. At about 12 dollars/month, it’s worth every penny. And the Exchange-Blackberry integration is truly fantastic. Outlook is no longer the unstable beast it was and search inside of Outlook has gotten very good.

    1. fredwilson

      once burned twice shyi’m not going backi would go somewhere else but not back to the borg

  33. jesswlin

    Ugh, sometimes I’m so tired of waiting that I click on the basic HTML version of gmail just so I can read my mail and respond. Quick and dirty but entirely unnecessary!

  34. Josh Fraser

    Yeah, me too.

  35. Mark Evans

    I, too, have been experiencing these issues for at least a year. And my storage is only at 2.3 GHelp, Google!

  36. Jan Schultink

    Same problem here, not 30s though.It creates a new work pattern:- Send email- While waiting for gmail catch up on some RSS feeds- Send email- While waiting for gmail check @messages- Send emailStill love gmail though: it will take some time before they burn up my goodwill capitalMaybe the SAAS revenue model: pay for performance? I would pay.

    1. ShanaC

      i think many people would pay for performance- as morgan brought up, it isn’t only a google thing: which is why they are rolling out the darknet.

  37. Aviah Laor

    They moved ALL email communication to https.This is remarkable! They had this hacking issues, and short time afterward everything is secure.Probably quiet increased the load, and will take some time to provide http speed. But it’s worth it.Would be interesting to see their internal numbers of the change when moving such a huge service to https.

    1. fredwilson

      that sounds like a plausible reasonif that is the issue, then i am fine with the slownessbut i do hope they fix it soon

  38. goldwerger

    Exchange server is still the undefeated king. No matter how much we like to hate Microsoft, when it comes to e-mail, I think Outlook is the most powerful app out there and with exchange it can’t be beat for performance and flexibility. I have my life long emails, contacts and calendar accessible with ease, speed and synchrony from all my computers, iPhone, iPad and browser. Perfect reliability…

    1. Nate

      And in every job where I’ve had to use Outlook/Exchange, a 50MB storage limit.

      1. goldwerger

        I use Sherweb $9/mo for 3GB

    2. fredwilson

      i used to think that Eyal but Outlook and Exchange could not scale to my needsplus the inbox/folder model is not as good as the search/label/archive model

      1. goldwerger

        I combined the strengths of Microsoft and Google, by using Outlook with Google Desktop to search through emails (works really well). I hear Outlook 2010 has some serious improvements, but haven’t yet given it a spin… On scale, I can’t argue. For some reason, for me (even with many years of email accumulating) exchange works ultra fast. I guess to each his own… 😉

    3. Jd

      Are you out of your freaking mind? Exchange is terrible. Search is a joke. And PSTs are limited to 2 GB.

      1. goldwerger

        2GB limit is on your desktop. with hosted service you can extend (I’m now at about 5GB).Otherwise, I’m not ruling out mental issues. but that’s a separate issue entirely…be well 🙂

        1. fredwilson

          i can attest to the fact that Eyal is out of his mindin a good way!

  39. Brian Kung

    Huh, kind of makes me glad I use three gmail accounts concurrently.

  40. RichP

    Been having the same problems for several weeks…I think it might started when they switched everyone over to https after the China hacking. I’m only using 1GB of storage and I’m on a paid Google Apps account.

  41. Dave Pinsen

    Give Yahoo! mail a try. Yahoo! may not have the hipness quotient of G-mail, but it has a similar search feature, and IMO, it has an easier to follow layout (chronological, instead of sorted into ‘conversations’). More generally, Yahoo! seems to have been investing a lot recently into its mail and home page features. Worth checking out, for those of you who haven’t used it in years.

  42. Maddentim

    Hey, sometimes it’s slow, but rarely as you describe… I also use thunderbird 3 via imap to manage email. It is a good option to check out. I like the idea of having a local copy of my email archive. For a 13g mailbox the initial sync would take all night, but once done, it is very fast.

  43. Scott Carleton

    Appreciate the change to the mobile browser format. Enjoying reading today’s post without clicking through while I wait in line at Shake Shack.

    1. fredwilson

      thanks for your feedback scottthere are still some other things i’d like to fixbut i do think the new AVC is better than the old AVC

  44. Fernando Gutierrez

    I’ve had some speed issues too, but mostly in the accounts that are using more storage and are closer to the limit. And it has not been as terrible as in your case.If it’s something related with the size of the file/index you could try to move some sets of messages to another account. If you need to do a search across several accounts you can use Silentale, but those messages would not be making everything slower all the time. Or you can wait for Google to solve it… in the end they always do.

  45. Zksarts

    I’m having the same problem with G-Mail and it is driving me crazy. I like G-Mail a lot but if this keeps up, I may have to look for an alternative, which would be an enormous pain, notifying everybody, reprinting business cards, etc.

  46. paramendra

    And I have been quietly thinking, it can’t be Google, it has to be me, maybe I need to buy me a new laptop. Ends up it is Google. Gmail has been slow.Slow Gmail http://goo.gl/fb/ELNGn

  47. John Milner

    Been having much of the same problems. A few weeks ago I had to disable the multiple inbox feature (even though I really miss that feature right now), and that seemed to help seed things up a bit, but it’s still pretty slow. Hopefully, Google is address this issue.

  48. Aaron Gray

    I’ve had the same issues. I’m also having issues with keeping my calendars in synch to my Curve and to Tungle, but I think those are separate issues.On the mail front, I think my issues are related to the fact that I synchronize the mail onto my machine, so it’s available offline. I was able to make the sluggishness go away by going into “flaky connection mode” (if you have offline mail enabled, this option is under the green checkmark), which, as far as I can tell, causes the gmail web client to behave asynchronously (more like a software email client). This mode had its own downsides — I didn’t like the fact that image downloading was always manual (can’t set it to always download images from specific email addresses), and I just couldn’t get used to the oddness of opening Gmail, and having to wait for it do download my email.Downsides aside, you might want to give it a try and see if it solves any of your problems.-Aaron

    1. Fernando Gutierrez

      How big is your email Aaron? I also had offline enabled but I had to turn it off in my biggest account (around 7 GB) because it was constantly going offline even when I was connected.

  49. ShanaC

    yup I’ve been having slowness too. this post makes me feel better. it’s not a me issue anymore…

  50. Eric Leebow

    You’re not the alone. Some people just think Gmail is slow or doesn’t work because they are on a wireless connection. I thought that was the issue, it was about being on a wireless connection, yet it has something to do with Gmail.

  51. Bob DeMarco

    Fred…I was having the same problem and came to the same conclusion. Thanks for the heads-up.

  52. Andy Werner

    Same issues, on and off. Connection speed is a factor.

  53. Mark Essel

    I get some scripts hanging and browser closing at only 2-3gbytes of total storage. I chocked it up to my browser and keep reinstalling chrome. The hangups don’t happen to me in all browsers equally. Sometimes it’s smooth in firefox, safari, or opera.I often live with the Mac mail connection to my gmail account (iPhone/iPad) to help filter mails off to appropriate labels. Looking forward to a more capable or Google friendly android mail client. The sprint Evo 4G sounds delightful if & when we get 4G on Long Island. Back to comforting sun burnt wife, Maui’s beautiful but is starting to feel like one big theme park ride, I miss my dogs, my bed, and my dev pc.

  54. Nate

    Fred, do you use the paid “Apps” version of Gmail? I’ve heard that it’s less reliable than the free version.

    1. fredwilson

      not yetwe will be moving to it soon

    2. David Noël

      I’m experiencing the same issues with Google Apps. I use Mailplane for 5-6 email accounts in one client and there’s a setting “Reset Gmail session” that helps in some cases, not all.Not sure if the (extremely helpful) “Send & Archive” lab setting is causing this

  55. chromaniac

    i am not sure if you have got this suggestion already.use google gears.enable offline gmail.let it do the processing.shift to ‘Go into Flaky Connection Mode’.you might want to enable a longer period of emails accessible through offline gmail.this is a workaround that might work for you!

    1. fredwilson

      i do that on firefox but i don’t think that is available in chromeis it?

  56. Scott Allison

    I had the same issues, have you tried switching to “older version”? When I did everything worked fine. In had to use that for about a week, and then suddenly the standard version started working again.

  57. Shimon

    same problem here but on one of few emails… i thought it’s my own internet connection problem so while waiting for gmail to load, i usually go on to do something else or just open gmail on a new tab.

  58. Kane Jamison

    Using standard Gmail, with a mailbox size of 3 GB, and about 15 labs running. I get this problem daily, especially the “Loading” hangup at the top center of the screen. Sometimes it totally freezes Gmail all together.

  59. Mike

    Fred, I’ve had the same problem for a while. Try doing the opposite. I find that if I have multiple gmail windows open it actually gets worse..and often when I have 3 or 4 gmail windows is when i get the worst performance. Try taking it down to 1…that seems to help me at times.

  60. Andrew Y

    Fred,I’m 2 months in to using apps premier, with only 6% of our 25.6gb used so far…..am getting regular slow downs and can often take 30 seconds for things to happen….I also find it really frustrating when trying to cut and paste text and it takes forever….!’ve tried rebooting pc and re-logging into google…..I did wonder if it was my connection speeds but other sites are working fine so have concluded that it is a google problem..!Whilst I really like many of the features…I do sometimes find myself thinking maybe I should re-visit MS via a hosted exchange service and it’s new Office web apps services ;(( as many of the google premier apps (docs etc) aren’t really all they are cracked up to be………for the time being i’m relying on the expectation that Google will just get better….!cheersAndrew Y

  61. johnfurst

    Ah,Thanks for your post. As I am traveling in continental Europe I only use the Gmail Web Interface for my mail now. I am staying in Vienna, Austria for some time. First I thought it’s my new ISP. Then I also switched to Google’s DNS and OpenDNS, but it did not improve speed.For the last couple of days the slowness seem to have disappeared on its own. Everything seems to be back to cool. Google really rocks.YoursJohnP.S.: I’ll stick with Google DNS because I don’t like the ISP’s redirection to their search interface in case a DNS lookup fails.P.P.S.: And my favorite dashboard, notebook, scrapbook or whatever you want to call it has become Google Wave.

  62. Mario

    I’ve been experiencing issues with one of my google apps domains. I actually noticed when I started using chrome. Switching back to firefox resolved my issue.

  63. sabowtage13

    And I thought I was alone in this… Going to be interesting times ahead for SaaS. I have this occurring on my Google Apps account (what is the brand of that again?) and a plain jane gmail account. I wonder what this will do to Google’s approach to the enterprise if they can’t provide performance and transparency on it.

  64. flash drive

    I own company (Free Edition) for both Gmail and Google Apps email normal use. They both have suffered in recent weeks, but the apps version is much worse. Performance on the desktop is even worse than the iphone.