Google apologises for lengthy Gmail outage

There has been no word about what caused the problem

Google has apologised for a temporary fault that affected millions of users of its Gmail service.

Up to half of users were affected, over 12 hours from 15:00 BST on Monday, with many taking to Twitter to complain.

Google said the delivery of some messages had been halted for a few seconds while others were "more severely delayed".

On Gmail's status dashboard, it said: "We're aware that prompt delivery is an important part of the Gmail experience.

"And today's experience fell far short of our standards."

Last month, Google experienced blackouts across all of its services.

And although they only lasted a few minutes, it saw worldwide internet traffic plunge by about 40%.