No, Gmail is not ‘sunsetting’

A fake email being spread on Twitter/X claims that Google is “sunsetting” Gmail in 2024, but this is a blatant hoax.

Internet denizens have begun spreading an image of an email that falsely alleges that Gmail would shut down on August 1, 2024. Many instances of the image being posted are blatant satire, but others are missing the joke and believing the fake “announcement” of Gmail’s demise. This quickly led to “Gmail” trending on Twitter/X on Thursday afternoon through a mixture of humor, confusion, and exasperated correction.

To be clear, Gmail is not shutting down.

The official Gmail account on Twitter/X has indirectly acknowledged the hoax, affirming that “Gmail is here to stay.”

The nugget of truth that makes this particular hoax easier to believe is that Google announced last year that Gmail’s classic “HTML View” would be going away in 2024. This simplified experience was severely outdated in terms of features, but it served as a decent backup option for those who only needed a bare-bones view of their inbox.

Outside of that minimal change, Gmail will continue to work as expected for years to come. In fact, Google is continuing to add new experiences and improvements to Gmail, such as the recent Gemini for Gmail launch.

What’s more worrisome is that people could believe that Google would ever shut down Gmail at all. The company has garnered a reputation for shutting down underused or underperforming apps and services over the years, but Gmail is one of the core pillars of Google. Effectively every Google Account in existence is tied to a Gmail account. Google won’t (and probably can’t) sunset Gmail any time soon, no matter what random people on the internet may want you to believe.

This article was updated to include a tweet from Google.