Gchat, Google Drive Down for Some Users

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Image: Walter Bieri /Associated Press

By Adario Strange2014-03-17 16:21:57 UTC

A number of users are reporting that Google’s chat service Gchat and Drive are both down. The earliest reports (noted via Twitter) began trickling in around 12 p.m. ET on Monday.

See also: The Beginner's Guide to Gmail

But Gmail in general is still up and running. A quick check of the status verification website DownForEveryoneOrJustMe indicates the service is still working and no updates have been made to Google's Apps Status Dashboard.

The last major disruption of Gmail occurred in January, when the service suffered two major outages over the course of two weeks.

The free email service had roughly 425 million monthly active users as of 2012, making it one of the leading webmail services in the United States, along with Yahoo and Microsoft's Outlook (which was merged with Hotmail in 2013).

As Gmail has grown over the years, users have suffered through occasional service disruptions, but those issues are usually resolved within the same day. However, as Google has continued to tie more of its other services into the free webmail service — such as Google Calendar, Hangouts (chat) and even search — the reliability of the Gmail has become an increasingly vital issue for frequent users of the service.

Google has not issued an official update on the service's status and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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