Did you know that you can still use Gmail, even when you’re offline? By enabling Offline Mode in your Gmail settings, all your emails are synced to your computer.
You can store up to the last 90 days of your messages on your computer. So if the Internet “goes down”, you can still read, reply, and send messages.
How to Enable Offline Mode in Gmail
Gmail offline creates a cache or store, or your messages on your computer. By default it’s disabled, so you’ll need to enable it to take advantage.
Log into your Gmail account.
Click on the Settings icon (the gear wheel) in the top right corner, and then click See All Settings.
On the Gmail Settings page, click on the Offline tab on the toolbar.
On the Offline tab, click the box to Enable Offline Mail.
Gmail Offline Options
After enabling offline mode you’ll see the settings appear.
Sync Settings allows you to choose how many days worth of messages should be stored on your PC.
You can select 7, 30 or 90 days. You can also select whether attachments should be downloaded or not.
The Security section lets you choose what happens if you log out of Gmail.
Security Options
If you choose to keep the data on your computer, then anyone with access to your PC will be able to view your emails.
Selecting “Remove offline data” will delete all the stored messages whenever you log out of Gmail. However they’ll be re-downloaded when you log back in.
After making your selections, don’t forget to click the Save Changes button.
Create a Bookmark for Gmail
After enabling offline mode, you’ll see a message to create a bookmark for Gmail. Click the OK button and you’ll return to your Inbox.
Create the bookmark now if you don’t already have one set.
The next time that you lose connectivity to the Internet and you try to access your Gmail, you’ll see a message appear in the lower left corner.
Sending and Receiving Mail While Offline
When you’re offline you won’t be able to send or receive emails. Even with offline mode enabled. Sorry. That’s not how it works.
What happens is that when you’re connected to the Internet, Gmail will download your messages into your browser cache.
When you lose your Internet connection, the only emails that you can view are the ones that have already been cached. Any new messages will remain on Gmail’s servers until you can re-connect.
Sending emails is similar. What’ll happen is any emails that are “sent” while you’re offline, will actually be queued and then sent as soon as you regain an Internet connection.
Which Browsers Can You Use?
Gmail’s offline mode works with most web browsers. The caveat is that you have to enable it in each browser separately.
For example, if you use both Chrome & Edge, then you’d need to enable offline mode in both of them.
That’s because your emails are stored within your browser’s cache.
Clearing Browser Cache Will Delete Your Offline Emails
Since your messages are stored within your browser cache, if you clear your cache, you’ll delete your offline emails.
This can be an issue for anyone who has set their browser to automatically clear the cache when closing the browser. That’s something for the more security conscious among you to bear in mine.
They’ll be re-synced as soon as you re-connect to the Internet.
Summary
Gmail offline mode makes webmail behave a little more like using an email client program such as Outlook for Windows.
While it’s not going to be an essential feature, it can be useful for those suffering from intermittent Internet connections.
As far as I’m aware, no other email provider is offering an offline mode, so if you need it, you might want to consider either moving to Gmail, or having your regular emails forwarded to a Gmail account.
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