Back in 2004, email looked a lot different than it does today. Inboxes were overtaken by spam, and there was no easy way to search your inbox or file messages away. Plus, you had to constantly delete emails to stay under the storage limit. We built Gmail to address these problems, and it’s grown into a product that 1.5 billion users rely on to get things done every day. Today, on Gmail’s 15 birthday, we’re taking a look back and sharing where we’re headed next.

Different from day one

On April 1, 2004 we launched Gmail (despite the timing, not a joke). It had the power of Google Search built right in and grouped your messages into conversation threads, making it easier to find and reply to them. You could also store 1GB of data for free—nearly 100 times what was available at the time. No wonder the world thought it was a prank.