Users locked out of Google Mail

Google is "working to resume normal service soon" on its Google Mail service after thousands of users were left without access.

The search giant on Thursday afternoon confirmed the outage after readers complained they couldn’t access their mail accounts. Problems were also reported with Google Desktop.

GMail (as the service is known outside the UK, where legal issues necessitated a name change) user Nathan Anderson said he was shut out of the mail service for at least three hours.

"I have tried through a number of different ISPs including my BlackBerry and nothing works," he told ZDNet UK.

By late afternoon on Thursday users were reporting the service as being back to normal, although many were questioning the root of the problem. Google’s spokesperson declined to comment, other than to say Google was "investigating this".

Back in March several Google Mail users complained that they were struggling to use the free service. Two said their accounts had actually been deleted.

The search giant eventually admitted some accounts had indeed been wiped, but claimed it was not responsible.