SEATTLE (Reuters) - Google Inc said on Monday it has resolved an issue with its contacts system that caused many users of its Gmail service to have trouble accessing their online e-mail.

The problems began at about 5 p.m. EDT and an announcement on the company's Gmail "Help Center" site said the issue is now resolved.

Google said an outage in the contacts system used by Gmail prevented the e-mail system from loading properly. The company also said that there may be minor delays in deliveries even though all mail is safe.

Users across the United States, Canada and India reported problems with Gmail and a Google employee also reported that the company's own corporate e-mail account was down.

(Reporting by Daisuke Wakabayashi; editing by Carol Bishopric)