Gmail is a free webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google. In Germany it is officially called Google Mail. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though still with beta status. As of July 2009 it has 146 million users monthly. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps suite. With an initial storage capacity offer of 1 GB per user, Gmail significantly increased the webmail standard for free storage from the 2 to 7 MB its competitors offered at that time. The Gmail service currently provides more than 7350 MB of free storage. Users can rent additional storage (shared between Picasa Web Albums and Gmail) from 10 GB (US$20/year) to 400 GB (US$500/year). On April 1, 2005 the first anniversary of Gmail, Google announced the increase from 1 GB.

The Gmail Labs feature, introduced on June 5, 2008, allows users to test new or experimental features of Gmail, such as bookmarking of important e-mail messages, custom keyboard-shortcuts and games. Gmail's spam filtering features a community-driven system: when any user marks an email as spam Gmail Mobile is a version of Google's Gmail email service. It is a free service, developed to provide access to Gmail from mobile devices such as cell phones~