China blocked access to Google's email service through third-party applications, adding Gmail to the list of services from the search company banned in the world's largest internet market.

Traffic volume for Gmail dropped about 85 per cent on December 26th before falling further on Saturday and remained near zero on Monday.

The data was posted on Google’s Transparency Report page.

While Gmail’s website had already been blocked, the latest restrictions cut off users of third-party services including the mail app built into Apple iPhones and iPads.

Those emails can no longer be accessed while messages sent to and from Gmail to Chinese domestic email services haven’t been bounced back.

"We've checked and there's nothing wrong on our end," Google said in a statement.

The Cyberspace Administration of China didn’t reply to faxed questions about the Gmail blockage.

Users routinely skirt the so-called Great Firewall that censors China’s Internet by deploying a virtual private network, a strategy that currently works for accessing Gmail e-mails.

Google’s search and map functions have already been blocked in China as authorities limit access to foreign news and tensions escalate over cybersecurity and hacking.

Google will eventually return to China, as will Facebook, China's government-run Global Times wrote in a December 16th editorial.

China is becoming stronger and the scope of sensitive information will be narrowed, it said. The editorial has since been removed from the Global Times website and other websites that had reposted it.

Bloomberg