Best Google April Fools Pranks of All Time (and Why They Stopped)

For two decades, April 1 meant one thing for tech fans: waiting to see what Google would invent. Google April Fools pranks ranged from search powered by pigeons to a mission to colonise Mars, and a few were so believable that people thought they were real. On April 1, 2008, we rounded up that year’s crop. Here is an updated look at the best Google April Fools pranks of all time, the one that went wrong, and why the tradition went quiet.

Quick answer: Google’s best-known April Fools pranks include MentalPlex (2000), PigeonRank (2002), Gmail Paper (2007), Project Virgle and Gmail Custom Time (2008), and the YouTube Rickroll (2008). Gmail itself launched on April 1, 2004, and many people thought it was a joke. Google skipped April Fools jokes in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, after the 2016 Gmail “Mic Drop” prank backfired, and the big annual pranks never really returned.

The classics: early Google pranks

• MentalPlex (2000): Google’s first April Fools joke, a search engine that supposedly read your mind so you didn’t have to type a query.
• PigeonRank (2002): a spoof explanation that Google’s results were ranked by flocks of pigeons pecking at the most relevant pages.
• Gmail (2004): not a prank at all. Google announced free email with 1 GB of storage on April 1, a huge amount at the time, and many people assumed it was a joke.
• Google Gulp and TiSP: a “smart drink” and a free broadband service delivered through your toilet, two of the most-remembered spoof products of the 2000s.
• Gmail Paper (2007): Google would print your emails and post them to you, free.

The 2008 pranks we covered on the day

• Project Virgle: a fake joint venture between Virgin and Google to set up the first permanent human colony on Mars, complete with an application to become a “Virgle Pioneer”.
• Gmail Custom Time: send emails into the past, back to April 1, 2004, so belated birthday wishes appear on time.
• Google Calendar Wake Up Kit: alerts that escalated from an SMS to a bucket of water and a bed-flipping device.
• Google Australia gDay: search the web 24 hours before pages are written, using “Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation”.
• AdSense for Conversations: ads floating above your head that match what you’re talking about.
• YouTube Rickroll: every featured video on YouTube’s home page linked to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Read the story of rickrolling.

That year, other blogs joined in with fake stories too, such as “Google buys Facebook” and Google “DreamAds” placing ads in your dreams. See how bloggers played pranks on April Fools Day.

Later favourites

• Gmail Motion (2011): control your email with body gestures.
• Pac-Man in Google Maps (2015): turn real streets into a Pac-Man maze. Similar games still live on; see our post on playing Pac-Man online.
• Where’s Waldo in Google Maps (2018): a week-long hunt for Waldo on the map.

The prank that backfired: Gmail Mic Drop

In 2016, Google added a “Send + Mic Drop” button to Gmail that sent a Minions GIF and muted the thread. Some people clicked it by accident on serious work emails, and there were reports of real harm to jobs and relationships. Google switched it off within hours and apologised. It made Google far more careful about jokes inside real products.

Why Google stopped April Fools pranks

Google cancelled its April Fools plans in 2020 out of respect for people affected by COVID-19, and skipped again in 2021. Since then, the company-wide tradition of big spoof launches has not come back in the same way, though small Easter eggs still appear in products. For fun tricks you can still try, see Google Gravity and our upside down text generator.

What changed since 2008

Our original April 1, 2008 post covered the year’s pranks as they happened, with links to the official Google blog posts and a Project Virgle video. Those prank pages and the old Flash video embed no longer work, so we have kept the descriptions and removed the dead links. The post now covers Google’s best pranks across the years and how the tradition ended.

FAQ

What was Google’s first April Fools prank?

MentalPlex in 2000, a fake mind-reading search feature.

Was Gmail an April Fools joke?

No. Gmail was announced on April 1, 2004, and its 1 GB of free storage sounded so unlikely that many people thought it was a prank.

Does Google still do April Fools jokes?

Google skipped April Fools in 2020 and 2021, and the big annual spoof launches have largely stopped. Small hidden jokes still turn up now and then.

What was the Gmail Mic Drop?

A 2016 April Fools button that sent a Minions GIF and muted the reply thread. It caused real problems for some users and was removed within hours.