Thousands of Gmail users have been left with an empty inbox this morning after their accounts were accidentally wiped clean.

As well as a lack of emails, many Gmail users reported that their contacts had also disappeared.

Gmail, operated by Google said that 0.08% of their mailbox users were affected by the problem.  They also stated that engineers were working to restore normal service, suggesting the data has not been permanently deleted.

Google does not release official figures for the number of Gmail account users, but there are believed to be between 150 and 200 million using their inbox service.

That would suggest that around 150,000 have had their inboxes wiped.