Google's April Fool's gag for Gmail this year was an alternative send option named the Mic Drop. Through the feature, sent emails will include a GIF of Despicable Me Minion dropping a microphone, and the sender will not be receiving any replies from the recipient of the Mic Drop email.
The prank, however, went horribly wrong. The company received backlash from users who felt insulted by the Minion GIF, with the animation even inadvertently included in serious emails.
Google heard the complaints of users, immediately taking down the feature and apologizing for the headaches that the feature caused.
In the updated blog post wherein Google announced the feature, the company said that it is now working to return the replies that users did not receive for their Mic-Dropped emails.
"We realize many of you use Gmail for very important messages, and we are sorry if Mic Drop was in any way harmful to you," Google wrote, apologizing once again for the debacle. The company, however, noted that the feature was not activated for Google Apps users for business, education or government.
Google also listed some learnings regarding the prank gone awry, with the first one being that the company have asked users first if they would have liked to turn on the Mic Drop feature in their Gmail accounts, along with asking for confirmation from the user before sending a Mic-Dropped message.
Google added that it did not anticipate that users would accidentally click the Send with Mic Drop option, despite it being located near other Send buttons. In addition, Google admitted that there was a bug that caused emails to include the Mic Drop GIF even when the regular send option was selected.
"Again, sorry. We love April Fools jokes at Google, and we regret that this joke missed the mark and disappointed you," the company said.
