It wasn't just you; people flocked to the popular outage reporting website Downdetector to proclaim an outage at Google. Based on the reports, Google Drive appeared to be the most affected, but we saw a variety of services experiencing issues.
For its part, Google finally acknowledged that something is wrong on its Google Workspace status page around 12:40 p.m. Pacific. It took a while, but at least we know it's official now.
The outage kicked into gear around 9:00 a.m. Pacific and lasted well into the afternoon. Things finally started resolving around 1 p.m. Google reported via the Workspace page that it had found the cause and was resolving it around 2 p.m.
By that point, reports on Down Detector had taken a steep drop and services seemed to be back to normal.
We monitored the evolving situation to keep you informed about the Google outage. Read on to see what happened.
Google was down — Live outage updates
The reports come pouring in
As is always the case with these outages, Downdetector is among the first places to show that something is off. Based on how quickly Google Drive jumped to 2,000 reports (and with other Google services on the rise), we can safely assume that something is wrong, even if it's only for a section of Google Workspace's giant user base.
No incidents, officially
Google's status page indicates that "No Incidents" are currently happening, so for now, we have the Downdetector reports from almost 2,500 users to rely on.
Look at all of those Google services
Outside of Instagram, which also seems to be having issues, it's all Google services at the top. Between Drive, Sheets, Slides and all of the other Google Workspace apps, lots of users are chiming in. Just the main Google Drive reporting page is up to 2,600, and some of the other services have more than 500 reports.
Holding steady
This outage is developing at a weird pace, but it's currently sitting at around 2,700 on Downdetector and still showing no official outage on Google Workspace's status page.
Usually, there's a sudden burst of reports or a sudden drop, but this one is hanging around the same level.
Users sounding off on Downdetector
Users are saying they're seeing an error coded "ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR" on Downdetector. That could be the cause of the spike in reports, or it could be some users' anecdotal experience.
Our first downturn...
We're finally seeing the first downturn in reports, but it's a small one.
Google acknowledges the outage
Google has finally acknowledged the downtime on its status page. "We are investigating access issues with multiple workspace products," reads the page.
"We are experiencing an issue with Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Docs beginning at Wednesday, 2025-11-12 09:00 PST."
Google's next update
Google says it will provide another update on Wednesday, 11-12-25 at 2:10 PM ET (11:10 PST).
As soon as we hear something, we'll update you with the status, so stay tuned.
Error code confirmed
Tucked inside of Google's post, the error code posted about by users on Down Detector is accurate.
"Some customers are encountering SSL errors such as "This site can't provide a secure connection / ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR" when accessing Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Google Docs," reads Google's status page.
Another official update
Google posted an update on its status page, but this one doesn't say much. In fact, it's essentially just a copy-paste of the last update:
"We are experiencing an issue with Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Docs beginning at Wednesday, 2025-11-12 09:00 PST
Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue.
We will provide an update by Wednesday, 2025-11-12 11:45 PST with current details.
We apologize to all who are affected by the disruption."
For anyone experiencing issues with Google Drive, it sounds like Google isn't quite sure what the problem is and we'll have to wait and see what happens.
None at this time...
It's worth noting that Google said there are no workarounds at this time in both of its updates. That means that if you're one of the people unable to access Google Drive or any other Google services, all you can do at this point is wait.
I wish I had better news regarding that, but if you need to send files and Google Drive is your go-to, check out some of the best alternatives.
Down and then up again...
Google appears to be experiencing issues with its services today. We saw a drop in the Downdetector reports, but then they rebounded.
As of this post, there are approximately 2,000 reports, which is below the peak but still increasing.
Google's latest update
As promised, Google posted an update on its status page. And like the last update, it didn't say anything new, only reiterating the same statements as the previous two updates. In case you missed those:
"We are experiencing an issue with Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Docs beginning at Wednesday, 2025-11-12 09:00 PST
Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue.
We will provide an update by Wednesday, 2025-11-12 12:10 PST with current details.
We apologize to all who are affected by the disruption."
Still staying steady
We're definitely not out of the woods yet, as it appears Downdetector reports are still coming in. As always, we'll keep you posted as the outage develops.
Below 2,000!
Sure, it's still a high number of reports, but it's below 2,000 now, which is a step in the right direction.
More of the same
I wish I had some exciting new news to report, but as it stands, Google is still reporting the same thing on its status page and Down Detector reports are hovering around 1,800. We appear to be in a sort of holding pattern while we wait for Google to fix something.
Everything is trending down but...
We're seeing a general downturn across all Google services, but none are completely up yet based on the total number of reports. Between all of the actively reported on Google services, there are more than 3,000 reports coming in, which is quite substantial.
Finally, a potential workaround
Google is still investigating the issue, but for the first time has provided a potential workaround.
Up to this time, the page listed that there wasn't a workaround.
According to the Google Workspace Status page, you can try rebooting your routers. The page also suggests accessing Google programs via a mobile device.
Sudden steep declines
Over on Down Detector, reports took a sudden steep decline in the last half an hour.
Google Drive was listed at just under 2,000 before nose diving to under 300 reports. Google had been hovering above 500 for a bit before sliding to under 150.
The decline had already began an hour or more ago but it was slow and steady.
Google has yet to update its status page. We'll keep an eye on that to see if anything changes.
Google Status still affected
The Google Workspace Status dashboard says that the engineering team has identified the cause of today's outage. They note they are seeing a "decrease in user impact" and are resolving the issue.
Down Detector reports are essentially back to their baseline.
At this point things look mostly cleared up. We're calling this outage but I will keep my eye on things
