Google withdraws April 1 joke Gmail after bug that caused emails to receive gifs

Google has pulled the April 1 joke from Gmail. The joke was that users could send mails with a ‘mic drop’ gif, but several users said that they sent serious mails with the gif in them and could get into trouble.

The Mic Drop button was next to the regular send button in Gmail and that would have confused users. The button caused users to send a Mic Drop gif with their response, in order to have the final say. Subsequently, the entire conversation was moved to the archive and answers no longer appeared in the mailbox.

The Google forum was filled with responses from people who sent serious emails using the Mic Drop feature. It is unknown how many of those complaints, such as of the writer who allegedly lost his job, are really true and how many are again April 1 jokes.

In addition, the joke contained a bug, whereby people who had pressed the correct button accidentally still sent an email via the Mic Drop function, the search giant confirms to tech site TechCrunch. Google has since disabled the feature.