Gmail: Who Needs the Internet Anyway?

The internet is overrated – at least Gmail seems to think so.  Today, they’ve announced that you can check your e-mail offline.

Now, even if you’re offline, you can open your web browser, head over to Gmail and access your e-mail just like you always do.

Once you turn on this feature, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail. As long as you’re connected to the network, that cache is synchronized with Gmail’s servers.

If you happen to lose your internet connection, Gmail will automatically switch over to offline mode and use data stored on your own hard drive instead of the information sent across the network. That way, you can read your messages, star and label them, and do all of the stuff you usually do while reading your Gmail online.

Any messages you send while offline will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time Gmail is able to connect to the internet.  If you’re on an unstable connection, just choose “flaky connection mode,” which is a sort of hybrid mode.  It uses the local cache as if you were disconnected, but still synchronizes your mail with the server in the background.

Some features, however, won’t work. Anything that requires an Internet connection, such as spellcheck, won’t work offline. And while you can open attachments, you won’t be able to add attachments at launch (that feature will be added soon, however).

UPDATE: This just in, you can now get your “Calendar” offline as well.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gmail Goes Offline with Google Gears
• Gmail Adds Offline Support
• Google’s Gmail Goes Offline
• Gmail Gets Offline Support, Finally
• Gmail grows up with offline e-mail access