Updated Google's popular free email service failed this morning at about 11am.

At time of writing, access to webmail version of Gmail was patchy, and POP3 and IMAP access was unavailable.

A Google spokesman told The Register the firm was aware of the problems and was investigating.

He apologised to users for the inconvenience.

The normally reliable Gmail service has suffered several failures recently, including a Europe-wide outage in February lasting several hours. Google blamed that incident on the failure of its data centre to take up the slack when one was taken offline for routine maintainence. ®

Update

The service is back up. Google says it's still investigating what happened and will let us know.

Related stories

• Gmail goes titsup for 30 MILLION PUNTERS (18 April 2012)

  https://www.theregister.com/2012/04/18/google_gmail_outage/

• Gmail error hops on POP (26 February 2010)

  https://www.theregister.com/2010/02/26/gmail_outage_hops_on_pop/

• Gmail users howl over Halloween outage (1 November 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/11/01/halloween_gmail_outage_reported/

• Google's Postini clogs email in US, UK (13 October 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/10/13/google_postini_delays/

• Gmail de-goodened by contact list glitch (24 September 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/09/24/gmail_glitch/

• Gmail turns into label junkie (2 July 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/07/02/gmail_labels/

• Google makes breaking up with Hotmail, Yahoo! easy to do (14 May 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/05/14/gmail_wants_hotmail_yahoo_users/

• Google answers Twitter's real-time search (12 May 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/05/12/google_on_search/

• Virgin Media switches to Gmail (15 April 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/15/virgin_media_gmail/

• Google taps your IP address for Starbucks targeting (7 April 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/07/google_search_local/

• Google brewing 'offline' web office apps (3 April 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/03/google_html5_apps/

• Gmail offers 'undo' email option (20 March 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/03/20/gmail_undo_email_option/

• Google blames Gmail outage on data centre collapse (25 February 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/25/google_gmail_data_centre_fail/

• Google's email service goes down (24 February 2009)

  https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/24/gmail_broken/