Gmail users can usually take comfort in knowing important documents they send to others are safe and accessible in their mail archives, but as many as 150,000 Gmail users lost all their stuff because their accounts got unwanted fresh starts Sunday morning.

According to forums, users found messages, chat logs and attachment had vanished due to a mistake by Google. Affected users found that their accounts had been reset. Users reportedly were treated as though they had just signed up for the service when they logged on.

On the Gmail status dashboard, Google says fewer than 0.08 percent of Gmail accounts were affected by the screw-up.

If you back up your stuff via email, will this change the way you operate?

Gmail account forum [via Engadget]

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