I logged in to Gmail earlier this past December 2006 — only to find that my localization setting was set to Chinese. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to get it back to English, mostly because I don't read Chinese!
I assumed it was just a fluke. Maybe my cat walked on the keyboard? My password wasn't particularly strong, but based on what happened, I doubt it has to do with that. The data is just plain missing. But then I noticed something else …
Gmail appears to have eaten 7 days of my email! Some of it was more than vaguely important. No, I wouldn't make something like this up to get attention. Here's a screen shot to document it (taken 4:30AM EST after I changed it back to English):
Notice that really big gap. No, I didn't delete it, and it's not in my trash folder, either. This is not an attack on Google in any way, but I felt this should be blogged as there is no "bug report" selection when you contact them, and not any assurances that I will be contacted back. It may not be an isolated event — other reports of this are here and here.
I contacted Google with all relevant details, but I got a form letter back. They refuse to provide me with logs that document who logged in and whether I was hacked. I decided that because I wasn't entirely sure that I was not hacked that I would not report it. But — more recently, Search Engine Land reports that Google admitted that some email in the same date range was lost — and for some users, all email. They claim they helped all users. Nope. All I got was a bunch of form letters making veiled accusations that my password might have sucked.
From now on I will be forwarding my emails to another location as a backup. It really scares me that this happened. And it bothers me even more that while Google claims to be "reaching out" to people, that I all I got was a form letter email that said I should "keep my password secure." Somehow I doubt that it was "only 60 people," as reported. Somehow I really doubt it.
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I had something like this happen early 2006 - it ate about 200 mails. I posted in the appropriate Google group and posted a bug report (don't remember where) and got 1 form letter, which I answered with more information and then suddenly had 2 Googlers via email trying to help me. It turned out that I marked it all as spam on accident and the search function doesn't search the spam box by default. It ended up being my fault (I posted that in the group as well, in case anyone did the same). I am also forwarding my gmails to my yahoo account, which is just cluttered, but better a cluttered backup than none :-).
That's what I am doing for a long time. GMail is nice, but for important messages I really like to have a backup. But keep an eye on the forwarder as it sometimes stops working and you have to reset it to a different email address to get it working again. Christoph
Does it worry anyone that Google retains a copy of all your mail and you have no control over whether/when/if they actually delete what is yours?
On August 31, 2007, about 5 months of my gmail disappeared on all of my computers (iMac, MacBook, and Dell Laptop), but still appeared on my iPhone with the correct times. Some emails have come through temporarily, but with the incorrect times, and then some have come and disappeared when I pulled up gmail again. It's like it is auto archiving some of them because I can still find some when searching, but not all. I did just download Fusion to my MacBook to run Windows XP in a virtual machine and downloaded Firefox 2.0.0.6 to the Windows Virtual machine. Is it possible that my gmail security has detected too many access points…thought I read that there were about 5 things that would alert Google/gmail that my account was a security risk and it would shut down. Or is my account under attack? Or is there a setting I should change? I think I will forward my email to my mac account as suggested above. Anyone else have this problem? I'm not convinced that Google is going to come running to my rescue, and wonder if this happened to a lot of other people yesterday on 8-31-07.
I could not get on the internet last week for 3 days. After I was up and running I had a great SHOCK! My Gmail inbox had a date gap from 5/8 until 6/17! I did all the appropriate searches, checked Trash, Spam, etc., etc. Nothing. There were some semi-important messages but I remembered them and basically resent the messages. This has never happened to me before. SEO Egghead by Jaimie Sirovich » 5 Reasons Not To Use Gmail[...] Gmail deletes your email http://www.seoegghead.com/blog/seo/gmail-lost-7-days-of-my-email-p175.html "I logged in to Gmail earlier this past December 2006 — only to find that my localization [...]
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