Google is not shutting down its email service, despite rumors circulating online.
One version of Gmail has been removed, but the service is by no means closing down. Adobe Stock / AOP
Over the weekend, a rumor and an alleged screenshot of a message that Google was shutting down its Gmail email service started circulating on social media. Although Google has been hard at work closing down its own services, Gmail, which turns 20 years old at the turn of March-April, is not coming to the end of the road.
Despite the screenshot circulating on social media, “Gmail’s sun is not setting” behind the horizon. Among other things, Gmail’s official X account confirms this by stating that “Gmail is here to stay”.
Instead, the story of the html version of Gmail is coming to an end.
For a long time, Google’s webmail service has offered a user interface by default, which includes, for example, chat features, spell check, quick actions, text formatting and other special functions. The more stripped-down html version could be used, for example, on slow connections or with old equipment that cannot display the basic view.
Now that html version is on its way stood up. Gmail has sent notifications to users about this. When you try to go to the html version now, you receive a notification that from February 2024 the basic html version of Gmail will no longer be supported and instead the user will automatically be taken to the basic version of Gmail.
Users of Hacker News have told about the message they received from Google, in which it was told about the discontinuation of the html version. According to it, the html version based on old Gmail versions has been replaced by newer tools more than ten years ago, and does not include all Gmail functionalities.