Introducing Gmail Mic Drop

Posted by Victor-bogdan Anchidin, Software Engineer

UPDATE April 1 2pm: We heard feedback that some of you were negatively impacted by this feature, so we quickly turned it off late last night. In addition, we are working to bring back Mic-Dropped messages that had subsequent replies to your inbox, so you can read those.

We realize many of you use Gmail for very important messages, and we are sorry if Mic Drop was in any way harmful to you. Note that if you’re a Google Apps business, education or government user this feature was never turned on.

At Google we have a culture of sharing what we learned when things go wrong, and we want to share these learnings with you:

1. We should have asked you before turning on the feature, and it should have included a confirmation before sending.
2. We didn't anticipate accidental clicks: "Send + Mic Drop" was too close to other send buttons ("Send" as well as "Send & Archive"), which caused confusion. 
3. And yes there was a bug. It was rare, but possible to press the regular "Send" button and still Mic Drop if you did the following: 

• Opened a new compose window
• Pressed the “Send & Mic Drop” button with no recipients and saw error message
• Edited the message by adding message recipient(s)
• Pressed the regular send button.

Again, sorry. We love April Fools jokes at Google, and we regret that this joke missed the mark and disappointed you. 

UPDATE April 1 1am: Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. 😟 Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.

Email's great, but sometimes you just wanna hit the eject button. Like those heated threads at work, when everyone's wrong except you (obviously). Or those times when someone's seeking group approval, but your opinion is the only one that matters (amirite?). Or maybe you just nailed it, and there's nothing more to say (bam).

Today, Gmail is making it easier to have the last word on any email with Mic Drop. Simply reply to any email using the new 'Send + Mic Drop' button. Everyone will get your message, but that's the last you'll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won't see it.

When you drop the mic, your email will also include an explanatory image--just to help set expectations.

Friends and family have been testing Gmail Mic Drop for months, and the response so far has been awesome:

• "Sending email is so much easier when you don't have to worry about people responding!"
• "Mic Drop is a huge improvement over Mute! I can finally let everyone know I'm just not interested."
• "My team solves problems so much faster with Mic Drop. In fact, we stopped talking to each other entirely!"

Gmail Mic Drop is launching first on the web, but mobile updates are on the way. So stay tuned, and stay saucy.