Google is experiencing a glitch with Gmail that's causing the web mail service to slow down for some users. Although it's not nearly as far-reaching as last week's outage, the issue is causing problems for users trying to access conversations among multiple people.
Gmail's People Widget appears to be the cause of the sluggishness, which is only affecting Gmail on the web, Google says. For users with the widget enabled — which is the default — there is a delay in performing actions on conversation threads between multiple people. To fix the problem, you can go to your Gmail settings (the gear icon in the top right of the screen) and click on "Hide the People Widget," then save.
See also: 14 Google Tools You Didn't Know Existed
The People Widget is the column to the right of the email conversation that gives you details about the participants.
Google sent out the alert to Google Apps customers, including Mashable, via its Enterprise Support Console (screenshot below), which is separate from the publicly visible Google Apps Dashboard, which currently gives no indication of any problems. The issue has been ongoing for at least the last day, according to the alert.

Image: Google

Mashable was able to reproduce the problem as well as the solution, which noticeably speeds up Gmail performance. It's unclear whether the issue is affecting any other Google service for multi-person conversations. Some users were reporting problems with Google+ Hangouts Friday afternoon, although it's unclear if that is related to the glitch, particularly since President Obama was hosting a Hangout at the time.
Representatives for Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
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