(Credit: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images)
UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: Google says the Gmail glitch is now resolved. "We will publish an analysis of this incident once we have completed our internal investigation," it says.
Original Story:
Google’s email filtering on Gmail appears to be on the fritz today, as messages that would normally be routed to the Promotions or Social tabs are appearing in the Primary inbox. Some people are also seeing spam warnings on legitimate emails.
In a statement, a Google spokesperson said the company is "aware that some Gmail users are experiencing misclassification of emails in their inbox and additional spam warnings. We are actively working to resolve the issue. As always, we encourage users to follow standard best practices when engaging with messages from unknown senders."
Trouble started Saturday morning, with users on social media complaining about the “extremely annoying” glitch. "The @gmail spam filter broke this morning for me, absolute e-mail armageddon," one X user wrote. "Woke up to @gmail filters not working right and an overloaded inbox. Just deleting like crazy," added another.
The support team handling tweets directed at the Gmail X account didn't appear to understand what was happening at first. People who complained earlier today about Gmail filtering being broken or spam detection “acting a bit weird” were directed to a support page or encouraged to DM the account with details. The account later acknowledged the issue and told people to check the company's status dashboard.
On my personal account, LinkedIn notification emails showed up in the Primary inbox, as did promotional emails from retailers and select newsletters that I’d relegated to Promotions.
The tabbed inbox option on Gmail has been around since 2013 and lets you wall off the influx of marketing emails in their own inbox so important messages don’t get lost.
If you're seeing emails in the wrong tab, you can drag them to the correct one and tell Gmail to send all further messages from that email there, too. Ideally, Google will roll out a fix soon, so you don't have to spend your Saturday dragging and dropping. Until then, keep tabs on that status dashboard for updates.
Editors' Note: This story was updated with comment from Google.