Google Testing Offline Functionality for Gmail

By Greg McNevin

January 29, 2009: Addressing one of the major drawbacks of online applications, Google is testing new offline functionality for its popular Gmail service.

The experimental feature is available now in Gmail labs, provided you have downloaded Google Gears.

“From public WiFi to smartphones equipped with 3G, from mobile broadband cards to fledgling in-flight wireless on airplanes, Internet access is becoming more and more ubiquitous - but there are still times when you can't access your webmail because of an unreliable or unavailable connection,” writes Gmail engineer Andy Palay on the official Gmail blog.

The feature uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail, and as long as you're connected to the network, the cache is synchronised with Gmail's servers. If the connection drops out for whatever reasons, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode, and uses the locally stored data.

“You can read messages, star and label them, and do all of the things you're used to doing while reading your webmail online,” writes Palay. “Any messages you send while offline will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time Gmail detects a connection.”

Furthermore, the new feature includes a "flaky connection mode" for the times you may be dealing with an unreliable or slow connection, leaving Gmail functioning in a grey area between on and offline mode where it uses the local cache as if you were disconnected, but still synchronises mail with the server in the background.

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