If you wanted to pick a single date to mark the beginning of the modern era of the web, you could do a lot worse than choosing Thursday, April 1, 2004, the day Gmail launched.

How old is Gmail today?

Share All sharing options for: Gmail is 10 years old today

But its most important April 1st announcement came 10 years ago today and centered around a very real product: Gmail. The leading email service was launched in beta form on April 1st, 2004.

When did email become popular?

When the internet went live in 1991, email was primarily used by universities or for corporate communications. The general public saw it as a novelty and still too expensive for everyday use. On July 4, 1996, Hotmail launched the first free web-based email service.