Gmail Extras, Part 6, Offline Mode

This week we will look at “Offline Mode” in Gmail. This is a very effective way to continue working on Gmail when you are not online. It allows you to stay in touch when you get online again with no problems. If you are like me, you like no problems with anything, much less your communications.

If you, as I was a couple of weeks ago, were on a trip and needed to send emails, it is usually no problem at all. However, if, like me, you were out of site and range of Wi-Fi or some other way to connect to the web with your computer, it could be an issue. You may have had emails you needed to send but again, could not connect; although you still had the thoughts in your head and needed to send them. Gmail has the answer.

It is called, “Gmail Offline Mode.” What it does is allow you to type new emails and respond to previous emails when you are not online. Then when you get back to “town” and connect again, Gmail will automatically connect to its servers and send and receive those emails you “Sent” earlier. Basically, it takes care of your email business automatically when you are back online.

When you are taking your computer out of your normal locations, you connect and need to cut on the Offline Mode. Here is what you do. First, open your Chrome browser, which is needed to make the offline features work. Go to your settings by clicking on the gear icon in the upper-right corner and then “See all settings.” Now, click on the “Offline” tab at the top of the new window. Next, check the “Enable offline mail” checkbox.

Choose your settings, such as how many days of messages you want to sync on your computer. With hard drives being so large today that really should not come into play. Finally, do not forget to click, “Save changes.” Obviously, if you do not save your changes, nothing will happen.

To use Gmail in the offline mode, when not connected to the web, log into “mail.google.com,” on your computer while in Chrome. That is all you need to do. Now go ahead…edit and create new emails as you wish and when you log onto the web, hours, days, weeks, etc. later, the emails you sent while offline will start their journey to the people you addressed. The only noticeable change will be that they go to a new “Outbox” folder in your Gmail account and will be sent when you are back online as usual.

Once you are back in your native surroundings and have full access to the internet as usual, you may cut off the Offline Mode by performing the following steps. These are basically the reverse of what you did to cut it on. On your computer, open Google Chrome. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner, “See all settings,” “Offline” and UNcheck, “Enable offline mail.”

For more details about this feature check out, ghtech.site/gmailoffline at Google for more information.

Have a great week and next we will investigate how to cut down on embarrassment in email and what to do when you go on vacation.