Google Cloud Outage Explained: What Went Down on June 12, 2025

🌐 What Happened?

On June 12, 2025, a major Google Cloud outage affected millions of users and businesses around the world. The failure lasted nearly 10 hours, disrupting platforms like Gmail, Spotify, Discord, Snapchat, and even developer tools like Replit and Cloudflare.

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🕒 Timeline of the Outage

• 10:51 UTC – Outage begins
• 12:00–14:00 UTC – Partial recovery starts
• 19:00 UTC – Workspace apps begin functioning again
• 22:18 UTC – Full global resolution confirmed

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📉 Affected Services

• Google Services: Gmail, Drive, Meet, Chat, Calendar, Cloud Console
• Cloud APIs: BigQuery, App Engine, Vertex AI, Identity Platform
• Third-party Services: Spotify, Discord, Twitch, OpenAI, Snapchat, Shopify, GitHub

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🧠 What Caused the Outage?

Google confirmed the issue originated from a misconfigured quota check in its Identity and Access Management (IAM) system. This caused cascading failures across essential backend APIs, which impacted multiple services globally.

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🌍 Global Impact

• Over 44,000 reports of Spotify issues
• Gmail, Drive, Discord, and Snapchat flooded Downdetector
• Internet users globally experienced disruptions for several hours
• Businesses and cloud platforms relying on GCP faced outages

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✅ Is Everything Working Now?

Yes. As of late June 12, all services have been restored. However, developers using Google Cloud services are advised to check the Google Cloud Status Dashboard for any regional issues.

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🔍 Why This Outage Matters

This incident underscores how critical cloud infrastructure is to our digital lives. A single misstep in identity or quota policy brought down services used by billions. It shows the importance of redundancy, monitoring, and multi-cloud preparedness.

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📊 Key Takeaways

• Review Google Cloud logs if your app or service went down
• Consider multi-region or multi-cloud fallback strategies
• Stay updated via the Google Cloud Status Dashboard

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: When did the Google Cloud outage happen?

It began at 10:51 UTC on June 12, 2025.

Q2: Which services were affected?

Gmail, Drive, Spotify, Discord, Twitch, OpenAI, and many others were down.

Q3: Is the issue resolved now?

Yes, Google confirmed full recovery by around 22:18 UTC the same day.

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📣 Final Thoughts

The June 2025 Google Cloud outage is a major wake-up call for businesses that rely on a single cloud provider. Going forward, both developers and enterprises must invest in resilient infrastructure to avoid total service disruption.