How to Grab a Google Gmail Email Invitation

Gmail is a free, search-based webmail service that includes 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of storage. The backbone of Gmail is a powerful Google search engine that quickly finds any message an account owner has ever sent or received. When Gmail displays an email, it automatically shows all the replies to that email as well, so users can view a message in the context of a conversation. Gmail is the first free email service to offer email forwarding and free POP access.

But getting this free email service is restricted as it is in the beta phase. You can only get a gmail account when someone already using gmail has invites to spare and sends you an invitation to join gmail.

Gmail commanded a premium in the email market. Firstly it is from Google - so reliable and you can be sure it will be around years from now. So you can think of creating a lifetime permanent account. Since there were initially fewer users, there was a higher probability to get your prized email like yourname@gmail.com. Since you needed an invite and gmail did enough publicity to arouse curiosity regarding its free value features with limited invites, it drew popular response from users. And users of gmail will certainly claim that it is worth it.

Gmail invites have always been in short supply and were given to selected users were offered only 4-6 invites after a specified period of time on continous usage. Now as gmail users have increased and its service has become more stable, they seem to be opening up the service for a possible full launch. Recently gmail granted 50 email invites to all its users.

How to get a Gmail invitation?

• Ask a friend to send you an invite if he sends you email from a gmail address
• If you participate in popular forums or web communities / groups, forum members may be offering excess gmails to you.
• Seller at auction portals like Ebay offer gmail for a price, usually $1- $4. Just search for gmail. You need to register free to make a purchase. Choose a seller with a good reputation. Pay by the means which suit you best, though credit card will get your invite quicker.
• Gmail Invite Spooler offers a place for people with Gmail invites and those who want them to come together. Currently they have >200,000 invites to share (this is due to the sudden release of 50 gmail invites to all users, before that they had zero invites everytime I checked). There were several other like Gmail Swap and Gmail4Troops but they seem to have closed down at present.
• Surfing Google main page may get you an invite. Limited time offer it seems.
• Gmail invites on mobile phones by SMS. For users in the US only.

If you care for privacy -
Just remember that the persons who offered the invite and those you created the account at either end of the invite will be informed of the other’s email address.

Get a free Gmail email account today. Believe me, its worth it!

UPDATE: Gmail opens worldwide and you can create a free gmail account without invitation.