Goodbye Gmail
20 Years Ago Today Gmail Came To Stay
I’ve been using Gmail since the days when you needed an invitation to get an account.
Remember that?
That was 20 years ago. At the time Google search was THE thing, rapidly replacing Yahoo! search.
Gmail was even cooler because you needed an invite that originated with a Google employee to join the Cool Kids special club.
My invite came from a friend of a friend, kind of the way you might obtain weed in days before California legalized it. Google did the same invite thing in October 2014 when it came up with its “Inbox By Gmail” before making it publicly available in May 2015 and eventually incorporating the features in regular Gmail in 2019.
Remember Google’s once-upon-a-time motto? “Don’t be evil”.
Those were the days.
But it is probably not a surprise that the main reasons I’m leaving Gmail behind are AI, security and reliability. Anyone paying attention knows Google has reached full enshittification. A while ago, in fact.
Essentially Google is forcing people to accept its AI slop generating technology in order to use most of the features it offers. It also has apparently been on a content-scraping spree for some time, appropriating the content in Gmail to train its AI.
Oh yeah. Google and AI tech bros who form a sort of AI police to shout down anyone who disagrees with them will tell you that what’s happening with Gmail isn’t REALLY AI training. And it doesn’t matter anyway because it’s been doing this for a long time.
I also don’t buy Google’s who ‘what we’re doing isn’t really training AI, it four your own good’ line. Google, like Facebook, doesn’t have shining reputation for being honest or straightforward.
As disturbing as this is, for the first time that I can think of, I have just plain not been receiving email sent to my Gmail address and people I’ve sent messages to sometimes don’t receive them. The people who sent the missing emails say the messages didn’t bounce back as undeliverable o anything like that. The only reason I know I wasn’t getting messages is when these folks call and ask “didn’t you get my email?” Or I contact them and ask the same question.
Then there’s the bullshit privacy policy, use of cookies to deliver ads, and Google’s own stated policy that Gmail users have “no expectation of privacy”.
Oh, and hacking from China and outages. Those demerits over the years add up.
Actually, after I learned Google was scraping content, I began to phase out Gmail in 2022. Now I pay for email, a VPN and calendar package.
These days in cyberville, you get what you pay for.
Which brings me back to how I got this point in the first place and how disturbing Google’s policies and actions have become.
I didn’t foresee that Google (sorry, not using their stupid corporate name) would infiltrate all manner of internet interactions and communication, effectively seizing control of all online interactions that don’t take place inside walled gardens like Facebook.
Less than a year after I signed on to Gmail, Google would buy YouTube, founded in early 2005 by three PayPal employees (!), for what seemed like the absurd valuation of $1.65 billion in Google stock.
I guess that’s why I’m not a wealthy tech investor. No vision.
In the beginning I though Gmail was a pretty cool thing. Mostly it was free and the company kept promising it would only get better and better and you’d get more and more storage.
Back in April 2005, Georges Harik, then the product management director for Gmail, said that Google would “keep giving people more space forever,” Internet News reported at the time. Well, kinda. Storage eventually increased to 15 gigs, but if you want more you gotta pay.
The Gmail welcome message from Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005, 4:09PM:
First off, welcome. And thanks for opening a Gmail account! We think Gmail is different. So to help you get started, you may want to:
Check out the new Gmail Tour in our Getting Started section. It’s good for, well, getting started.
Visit our Help Center. Here you can browse frequently asked questions, search for answers and learn about some of Gmail’s cool features, like labels, keyboard shortcuts and free POP access.
Import your contacts to Gmail from Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, Hotmail and other programs. Then email your friends with your brand new Gmail address.
As you’re using Gmail, you might also see some ads or related links. We believe that you shouldn’t have to share your inbox with large, blinking, irrelevant ads. Gmail’s small text ads are matched by computers, and designed to be relevant to the messages you’re viewing. Which means for once, you might even find ads to be interesting and useful.
Users have often told us that the more they use Gmail, the more they discover its added benefits--such as being able to find any message instantly or to manage all your contacts in one place. So go ahead and give it a try. In the meantime, we’ll keep working on making Gmail the best email service around. Thanks for joining us for the ride. We hope you’ll enjoy Google’s approach to email.
Thanks,
The Gmail Team
P.S. You can sign in to your account any time by visiting
http://mail.google.com
As you can see, even in the beginning, Google was setting up users for the future.
I especially like the part about ads being interesting, useful and relevant. Sorry, Google. Not anymore and not for a long time.
And, of course, it once flagship product, Google search, is has become a useless swamp filled with festering bullshit.
I did sort of have a good time experimenting with Gmail.
From the start I wanted to see how many emails it would take before I filled up the free storage. I deleted very few emails for about 17 years. Of course, space began to fill up more quickly in later years with larger attachments and crap in the message fields.
So how many emails did it take?
Slightly more than 1 million. That’s right. A million.
And yes, it took about three days to delete all that crap. Right now have about 25,000 stored, most of it is not important and those that are important have been exported to my new email.
Soon it will be none.
It took me the better part of the last 10 months to change email address on all kind of things to eliminate Gmail. Now that process is as complete as it’s going to be.
When I switched to my pay email, I was able to export all of the Gmail emails and contacts I wanted to keep. Meaning, I’m losing nothing.
But getting rid of my Gmail account won’t disentangle me from Google.
You see, I’m also a creator on YouTube. To make and maintain a YouTube channel, you supposedly don’t need a Gmail address, but you DO need a Google account.
Oh, and of course quitting Gmail isn’t exactly easy. There’s some links below, if you’re interested.
Nonetheless my 20 years with Gmail are at an end. So, with any luck, by 4:09PM, today, Thursday Dec. 11, 2025, Gmail will be dead to me.
You could say AI made me do it.
Further reading:
How to Delete Your Google Account (or Gmail Only)
https://www.wikihow.com/Delete-a-Google-or-Gmail-Account
What Happens When You Delete Your Gmail Account: A Comprehensive Guide
https://thetechylife.com/what-will-happen-if-i-delete-my-gmail-account/
Google AI can access some content from Gmail and chats. Here’s how to opt out
Google’s AI can use emails and chats at different levels if users let it. But it’s easy to opt out.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/11/21/google-ai-emails-chats/
Sorry, Snopes. Don’t I don’t buy all of this explanation.
Gmail Users Warned To Opt Out Of New Feature—What We Know
https://www.newsweek.com/gmail-users-warned-opt-out-new-feature-11088257
Gmail is holding “Important” messages hostage behind this new “Smart Features” AI permissions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GMail/comments/1ow65ip/gmail_is_holding_important_messages_hostage/
Gmail’s AI Secretly Reads Your Emails - Here’s How to Stop It
https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/gmails-ai-secretly-reads-your-emails-heres-how-to-stop-it/
Google denies analyzing your emails for AI training - here’s what happened
You can opt out of the features in question if you’re still concerned. Here’s how.
Google denies ‘misleading’ reports of Gmail using your emails to train AI
https://www.theverge.com/news/826902/gmail-ai-training-data-opt-out
Gmail And YouTube
Can you break the connection between YouTube and your google mail account?
Can I keep my channel up if I delete my Gmail/Google account?
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/ce3lfl/can_i_keep_my_channel_up_if_i_delete_my/
Unlink Google Account from YouTube Account
https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/263994796/unlink-google-account-from-youtube-account
I left over a year and a half ago. Anything Google gone. I never used Gmail for email or search, but I did have to have an account for YouTube and Apple ID of all things. So lost my history for YouTube, can still access if I know what I’m looking for. And as time goes on I’m okay without it. Apple changed its policy with Apple ID and so I no longer needed a Gmail addy. I have DuckDuckGo for my search engine, so no tracking of saving info, a VPN that keeps them guessing I hope. I used to faithfully trust Apple, but after what Tim has done with DT that’s out the window. How to get around them now? I’ve never used Siri and Apple AI, well, I’m not a fan of an enormous algorithm anyway, let me determine the path I take to find out things not some anonymous programmer that can change parameters at a whim to give me the answers he wants to have. I want ‘real’ intelligence not just an artificial one trying to be real.
You realize the evil of monopolies when you try to fully de-Googlefy.