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The Gmail team is most definitely aware of this and a fix is in the works. At SXSW this year there was a panel with four or five Gmail team members and this ca

The Gmail team is most definitely aware of this and a fix is in the works. At SXSW this year there was a panel with four or five Gmail team members and this came up — they said it's related to the size of your inbox, and that it has a lot of Googlers complaining internally too, since many of them have the oldest/large accounts. Also see http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/gmail-slow/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/gmail-slow/, though it has basically the same info.

epi0Bauqu 16y ago
That reference says "slowness is really only an issue for power users of the service — those with hundreds of thousands or even millions of messages." I only have 50K messages at a little over 4GB. People are saying they have inboxes as full as mine and are still fast. Something doesn't add up. Is my account on an old infrastructure?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- timmaah 16y ago
  My personal account is using only 648mb and speed has been horrid lately. Most of the time the slowness is in returning back to the inbox. If I get the "Loading" text at the top, it will take ~10 seconds these days.
- mattmcknight 16y ago
  I have 7.1GB, it's still beyond fast. Size isn't a sufficient condition for whatever problem it is you are seeing. The only time I had a problem was before I abandoned greasemonkey. Which operations are slow for you?
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    Everything is slow. Sending mail, switching labels, searching, even clicking settings or the home icon. I've tried across lots of browsers and computers. It's related to the account. Other, much smaller and newer accounts are fast.
- godDLL 16y ago
  Fast and slow is subjective. You might be talking about responsiveness of the UI, or a specific feature like search, and someone else might be used to a faster UI, or a faster search.
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    Click send and stare at a modal still working... for 30sec. This is not subjective.
    - knome 16y ago
      A computer is fast when the computer is waiting on you. A computer is slow when you are waiting on the computer.
      - KERMIT 16y ago
        There's no excuse for a modern mail client, regardless of how it's implemented, to take 30 seconds just to open the display that's used for composing an email. Yes, that's how slow GMail is for some of us.
- nethergoat 16y ago
  Are all 50k messages still in your inbox, or have you archived most of them?
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    All archived. I keep my inbox clean.
- palyndrome 16y ago
  > Is my account on an old infrastructure? I'm starting to wonder about that too - I've discussed this with a bunch of people recently, and those of us who are seeing the really awful performance (>30 second wait times for basic operations like sending a mail) seem to be mainly early adopters. Personally, I'm using Google Apps "Premiere" which I initially purchased about a month after launch.
Vivtek 16y ago
Y'know, this article isn't about Gmail performance nearly as much as it is another article about Google's utter disdain for our quaint notions of customer service and transparency. Somebody who goes to a conference might get something like feedback and disseminate it to the masses - but that's it. Google is not interested in hearing about problems, and if they themselves are affected by a problem, well, boy howdy, they're on it - but in any other case, maybe they're on it, maybe they're not. Who are we to ask?
- donohoe 16y ago
  Don't mistake lack of customer service for 'disdain'. For every issue related to Googles free products and services when have you ever really, and I mean really needed a traditional customer service rep? Maybe once? Not at all? I would hate Gmail never to have happened becuase they felt it would require a call center and they were not prepared to do that... And as for 'transparency'... um, they're a private company. But a very transparent one at that in many other ways. Just not 'transparent' in this one way? While I'm here... (1) "Somebody who goes to a conference might get something like feedback and disseminate it to the masses" I've found the blog helpful (not always, but its still there): http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/whats-your-story.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/whats-your-story.html (2) "Google is not interested in hearing about problems" Try this link: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail (3) "and if they themselves are affected by a problem, well, boy howdy, they're on it" To be fair, as a dev its much much easier to solve a problem when you experience it first-hand but I maintain that they don't necessarily wait until it happens to them before problems get addressed. You know, you could be absolutely right in all respects BUT you assume its somehow malicious, or condescending or whatever - when, at worst, its benign.
  - illumin8 16y ago
    I'm sorry, but even though I've never needed Google support for Gmail, that doesn't excuse their lack of it. If they want to be taken seriously, or considered at all for real enterprise app replacement with Gmail or Google docs, they need to have a real live phone support, 1-800 number that lusers can call to get someone that will try to help them. Let me give you a terrible example: I sync my Exchange calendar with Google Calendar so I can get it on my mobile devices. As I work for a large Fortune 15-20 company, one of my meetings was a weekly recurring meeting with 2,000+ participants. This is not unusual as our quarterly all employees meeting requests are sent out to 50,000+ participants. This recurring meeting with only 2,000+ participants was cancelled, but I was completely unable to remove it from my Google Calendar. Google Calendar is broken, and after searching online for about an hour for a solution, I found many other people have the same exact issue. So, here I am with a recurring event in my Google Calendar that I cannot delete: An error has occurred. Please try again later. - this is the level of support I get from Google. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=51516f13b66a14ed&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=51... Basically, search the forums and find the bug has existed since 2009, and no communication from Google about fixing it. Do they really expect to be taken seriously in the enterprise space?
brown9-2 16y ago
being able to sort or search your inbox by size would make resolving this issue on a personal level a heck of a lot easier
anigbrowl 16y ago
related to the size of your inbox I wish there were an easier way to export mail. Probably half my gmail storage consists of mail & attachments from a project I worked on last year where the the other guy absolutely refused to use Google docs or dropbox or any similar solution, and insisted that every revision of every document be transferred via attachment, so that one folder is taking up most of a gigabyte. I'd love to just zip, burn to DVD, and shelve the data but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way to 'archive for export' and then just download it: I have to set up a mail client and transfer it all via IMAP, which will take a whole day :-(
- foljs 16y ago
  Yeah. A whole day. Or you can go to sleep, and leave it to take A WHOLE NIGHT.

epi0Bauqu 16y ago

That reference says "slowness is really only an issue for power users of the service — those with hundreds of thousands or even millions of messages." I only have 50K messages at a little over 4GB. People are saying they have inboxes as full as mine and are still fast. Something doesn't add up. Is my account on an old infrastructure?

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
timmaah 16y ago
My personal account is using only 648mb and speed has been horrid lately. Most of the time the slowness is in returning back to the inbox. If I get the "Loading" text at the top, it will take ~10 seconds these days.
mattmcknight 16y ago
I have 7.1GB, it's still beyond fast. Size isn't a sufficient condition for whatever problem it is you are seeing. The only time I had a problem was before I abandoned greasemonkey. Which operations are slow for you?
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  Everything is slow. Sending mail, switching labels, searching, even clicking settings or the home icon. I've tried across lots of browsers and computers. It's related to the account. Other, much smaller and newer accounts are fast.
godDLL 16y ago
Fast and slow is subjective. You might be talking about responsiveness of the UI, or a specific feature like search, and someone else might be used to a faster UI, or a faster search.
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  Click send and stare at a modal still working... for 30sec. This is not subjective.
  - knome 16y ago
    A computer is fast when the computer is waiting on you. A computer is slow when you are waiting on the computer.
    - KERMIT 16y ago
      There's no excuse for a modern mail client, regardless of how it's implemented, to take 30 seconds just to open the display that's used for composing an email. Yes, that's how slow GMail is for some of us.
nethergoat 16y ago
Are all 50k messages still in your inbox, or have you archived most of them?
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  All archived. I keep my inbox clean.
palyndrome 16y ago
> Is my account on an old infrastructure? I'm starting to wonder about that too - I've discussed this with a bunch of people recently, and those of us who are seeing the really awful performance (>30 second wait times for basic operations like sending a mail) seem to be mainly early adopters. Personally, I'm using Google Apps "Premiere" which I initially purchased about a month after launch.

Vivtek 16y ago

Y'know, this article isn't about Gmail performance nearly as much as it is another article about Google's utter disdain for our quaint notions of customer service and transparency. Somebody who goes to a conference might get something like feedback and disseminate it to the masses - but that's it. Google is not interested in hearing about problems, and if they themselves are affected by a problem, well, boy howdy, they're on it - but in any other case, maybe they're on it, maybe they're not. Who are we to ask?

donohoe 16y ago
Don't mistake lack of customer service for 'disdain'. For every issue related to Googles free products and services when have you ever really, and I mean really needed a traditional customer service rep? Maybe once? Not at all? I would hate Gmail never to have happened becuase they felt it would require a call center and they were not prepared to do that... And as for 'transparency'... um, they're a private company. But a very transparent one at that in many other ways. Just not 'transparent' in this one way? While I'm here... (1) "Somebody who goes to a conference might get something like feedback and disseminate it to the masses" I've found the blog helpful (not always, but its still there): http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/whats-your-story.html http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/whats-your-story.html (2) "Google is not interested in hearing about problems" Try this link: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail (3) "and if they themselves are affected by a problem, well, boy howdy, they're on it" To be fair, as a dev its much much easier to solve a problem when you experience it first-hand but I maintain that they don't necessarily wait until it happens to them before problems get addressed. You know, you could be absolutely right in all respects BUT you assume its somehow malicious, or condescending or whatever - when, at worst, its benign.
- illumin8 16y ago
  I'm sorry, but even though I've never needed Google support for Gmail, that doesn't excuse their lack of it. If they want to be taken seriously, or considered at all for real enterprise app replacement with Gmail or Google docs, they need to have a real live phone support, 1-800 number that lusers can call to get someone that will try to help them. Let me give you a terrible example: I sync my Exchange calendar with Google Calendar so I can get it on my mobile devices. As I work for a large Fortune 15-20 company, one of my meetings was a weekly recurring meeting with 2,000+ participants. This is not unusual as our quarterly all employees meeting requests are sent out to 50,000+ participants. This recurring meeting with only 2,000+ participants was cancelled, but I was completely unable to remove it from my Google Calendar. Google Calendar is broken, and after searching online for about an hour for a solution, I found many other people have the same exact issue. So, here I am with a recurring event in my Google Calendar that I cannot delete: An error has occurred. Please try again later. - this is the level of support I get from Google. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=51516f13b66a14ed&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=51... Basically, search the forums and find the bug has existed since 2009, and no communication from Google about fixing it. Do they really expect to be taken seriously in the enterprise space?

brown9-2 16y ago

being able to sort or search your inbox by size would make resolving this issue on a personal level a heck of a lot easier

anigbrowl 16y ago

related to the size of your inbox I wish there were an easier way to export mail. Probably half my gmail storage consists of mail & attachments from a project I worked on last year where the the other guy absolutely refused to use Google docs or dropbox or any similar solution, and insisted that every revision of every document be transferred via attachment, so that one folder is taking up most of a gigabyte. I'd love to just zip, burn to DVD, and shelve the data but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way to 'archive for export' and then just download it: I have to set up a mail client and transfer it all via IMAP, which will take a whole day :-(

foljs 16y ago
Yeah. A whole day. Or you can go to sleep, and leave it to take A WHOLE NIGHT.