Feature Friday: Offline Gmail

Comments (Archived):

1. I’m using it. I was disapointed when it launched a couple weeks ago, because offline support was promised for months and it’s not the “regular” gmail like we used to have with Google Gears.Now, it does actually work fine. If you use a gmail app on a tablet, then you won’t be lost as it’s the same.I can’t wait for Google to finally launch offline for docs and calendars too…

2. I’ve used offline Gmail in the past with the now discontinued Google Gears plugin. At the time it was nice, but definitely rough around the edges. When I really need to do email without an internet connection I use a desktop app, but that’s very rare.

3. I’m excited to see how the Chrome app works out for you – sounds like a great tool for travel.  Friday seems to be making a strong case for feature day.

4. One of the big reasons I love Outlook. And yup, I am very old tech! 🙂

   1. Me too. I use Outlook offline on the train home most evenings to clean up email. It’s great. My ADD is too bad to be effective on email during normal connected office hours.

      1. Yup! I can relate! 🙂

      2. Sounds like something I should be doing…

   2. Have come full circle back to Outlook. 

   3. +1. Outlook Mac 2011 accessing gmail works great and keeps everything cached. Not nearly as feature-packed or slick as WinOutlook, but I still find it unbeatable so far.

   4. Honestly, as I get older, I want a different set of features, like autofiling and delayed sending…I’m finding Gmail and I are getting along less and less.Help?  Who knows what to do?

      1. Outlook! (feels like I’m championing some weird movement!)Delayed sending and autofiling are both no problem. All you need to do is set up simple rules. And there are a few other macros that I can help share with you that would help take your outlook folder sorting to a whole new level! 🙂

         1. Where are these macros?

            1. Hello Donna! 🙂 Here you go – Everything you’ll need to get started.. :)http://www.alearningaday.co…

            2. Thanks for this, and for commenting on my blog — although it was something I stole from JLM.  

         2. I’m tempted…just because I am annoyed….

            1. Cool! You guys inspired me to post myself.. http://www.alearningaday.co… 🙂

            2. thank you

5. I used it too when it first came out, but I recall it had some limitations I didnt like. What’s thr limit on the available history?But I can do offline email on the iPhone or iPad Gmail client and emails sit in the Outbox until you connect.

6. Good luck.  I thought you were going to do a post about Amazon where I could offer up a Dead Sea Scroll Award… dang!Enjoy the weekend.

   1. I’m in the preorder line for two Kindle Fires. Looks amazing.

      1. FAIL. They co-opted Android, don’t give you the full Android Market, etc. Bleh. Hopefully this will be hack rootable like the Nook is.

         1. Totally agree on the tradeoffs but dude, it’s $199. That’s like saying the Mini Cooper is a horrible car because it can’t go four wheeling.

            1. I was talking to the AVC crowd, most of which I’m assuming expects more. Amazon could maybe make the Fire free, keeping it mostly a store front and increasing the ad support. *I* still wouldn’t touch it (unless I could co-opt it back to true Android). Plenty of people certainly would, and will, I agree.

            2. @aaronklein:disqus @SubstrateUndertow:disqus it is a matter of watching what happens since this is Amazon laying their cards on the table… this comes from two sides, the size and interface between user/vehicle.The trade off between price/needs will start to come into focus.

            3. Maybe!Looks good!But the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.It seems very inexpensive.Let’s just hope that doesn’t turn into too dam cheap?

            4. Agreed.

      2. Cool… Will need to check out! At least we have Amazon and Samsung applying pressure.

         1. “At least we have Amazon and Samsung applying pressure”Pressure for what?To undermine the profits of the last serious hardware innovator?Then where will our hardware thrills come fromAmazon  – FaceBook – Google – Samsung – HP – Dell?Even MicroSoft is a better bet than that crowd.

            1. Good point. I have always said to not write off Micro. To imply all things Apple does bring danger of slower innovation via complacency and so on. For now, the coverage of lawsuits and expanded customer services helps promote needed spark pushing forward innovative current.

            2. It’s not about pressure on profits, it’s pressure on innovation.Walled gardens look amazing initially, but rarely end up blooming quite as well as open ones.Even my Apple fanboy friends would love to see Google create a real iPad competitor to keep Apple in the hunt for innovative ideas.// cc @davewbaldwin:disqus 

      3. Am I the only one who is a tad nervous, if only because I remember when Amazon was quietly launching its own ad network?http://allthingsd.com/20110…

         1. I have zero concerns with (a) software targeting me with ads based on my usage patterns and data, or (b) trusting Amazon with keeping that data private. If you have a concern about (a), you’d better quit using most of the Internet. If you have a concern about (b), you take great care in the web services you choose to engage with.

            1. I’m not, I just don’t want to see situations where morality get pushed to the side.  WebMD for certain things creeps me out.  I have a limit….

            2. Agreed

7. I also used offline with Gears, but had to turn it off because it’s not compatible with multiple sign in. I’ve been using Thunderbird for offline, but it’s not very stable with multiple accounts and large inboxes, so I would love this app to work.

   1. That’s interesting… I rely on Gmail for multiple account signin as well  – personal gmail and our gapps for the business.  I didn’t even think until I saw your post that the offline plugin might have to choose which account to sync.

      1. It’s a dumb thing to have to choose. Here’s an idea: sync both.Maybe there’s a reason the user has both set up! 😉

      2. I’ve just installed the Chrome app and you can sync all your accounts. Multiple sign in is not compatible with the old offline Gmail that worked on Google Gears, not the Chrome app.

8. I was expecting that too! It will come, be sure!

   1. The comment I’m replying was a response to @davewbaldwin:disqus about the post on Kindle Fire. I replied on the phone’s browser but it didn’t go where it should.

9. I use boring old IMAP, and Google Sync for calendaring. Very seldom hit Gmail from a browser.

10. It was great to see this feature come back to Gmail.  I missed it too.  Have had the chance to run it for a couple weeks now and have noticed two things. One, when going back to crush through and clean out older folders, typically created and filled by filters moving messages into them, I do not always find all the messages I’d like to process. The system seems to try and be smart and pull down more recent messages, inbox, sent, etc – and, not always, but some of the time, you find that you don’t have a folder or as many messages in a section that you would like to have.Two, I do a LOT with Chrome, tabs up for gmail, web crm, google reader, basecamp, out intranet, news sites, etc – and have a few extensions that I love/rely on – so it’s probably the single biggest app running in memory at any given time.  This past week, when running the offline mail, I noticed that I had chrome slow down more, even lock a few times.  Of course you just close your browser and start it back up – all fresh you would think.  Not the case.  The offline Gmail essentially keeps Chrome running all the time – making it a bit tricker to truly close out – start back up fresh… I found after a few days that it hogged up quite a bit of background memory so I uninstalled the plugin – back to normal.That being said – I’m running a beasty pc which doesn’t really slow down that much – but since Chrome is my primary ‘app’ when working – I get touchy 🙂 when anything seems to interfere with it.  Just got a new racy macbook air with the ssd drive yesterday and am going to put it back on and see how it does.You’re opening statement is dead on – being able to work through some mail – when you’re offline is a great productivity boost – since that’s often when you are someplace quiet with few interruptions.~ Paul

    1. This has been an issue I’ve been wondering how it will unfold too.Chrome is an amazing idea. The problem is how to balance the benefit vs. drawbacks of memory usage and potential slowdown (or disruption if crashes). Of course processing speeds will increase over time, but how many extensions will one be able to install before there are other issues.One of those other issues is clutter or fighting for space.

    2. Paul, thank you for your thorough explanation.  I have not used off-line Gmail and I am not (yet) a big user of Chrome.  I feel your post has given me a good head-start!

    3. I was just about to say the same thing. However, I’m on a brand new MacBook Pro with a solid-state drive running Mac OS X 10.6.8 and the latest Chrome – and it still experience significant lags (up to 2 minutes sometimes) when loading up Gmail.It’s really a shame because I loved offline Gmail back when they first rolled it out for PCs. I missed it when I switched to the Mac.I know a lot (maybe most) Googlers are Mac users, so I’m sure they’re aware of this problem. Here’s to hoping they get it fixed soon!

11. All forces are moving towards ubiquitous connectivity, so it’s as if you’re heading towards a self imposed diet in a land of abundance. Diets are hard.

    1. I think it is healthy….then again I like my vacations to be in some sort of quiet, not so connected cabin type place.

       1. No argument from me. ’tis healthy. Still hard to do.

          1. No question…therefore choose somewhere really beautiful….

12. I tried it a few times the week it came out and it didn’t give me my entire inbox offline.  The load more messages stopped.  It also didn’t allow me to search all messages. It annoyed the hell out of me and I haven’t tried it since.  I use Chrome as well, so maybe it was just an early bug (other option is my lack of patience to figure out what i was doing wrong 🙂

13. Just downloaded Chrome… boo-yah… any app recommendations other than the offline gmail to experiment with?

14. Offline is good. offlineGmail is not good.Once in a while it is really good to be OFF the lines.offline Gmail is like ‘lining up’ for the Online (very bad) and not OFFline.

15. Not incredibly well. Lots of little glitches, no attachments. I understand what they were trying to do technically to replace Gears with HTML5 but the old offline mail was a seriously better experience.This is one of the primary reasons I upgraded to OS X Lion. The new mail app is actually decent and the offline capabilities are perfect.Gmail for Android, on the other hand…sometimes I wish I could rig my MacBook Air’s keyboard to work with it for offline mail. 🙂

16. I know it’s not a really cloud/web product, but I use Sparrow on my Mac exactly for that. Sparrow started as a Gmail only client and as such is working beautifully with it.Gamil offline app still feels not fully baked. I can’t understand why I need two different interfaces for the same data and app?

17. 225 days ago I converted to Mac from WINTEL.  My wife and I bought two macbook airs.  AWESOME.Rather than using offline which kills performance etc for Chrome (have tried them) I simply use Gmail IMAP accounts, works great, easy to archive old emails and work with folders.  Sometimes using a native app and old tech is easiest.

18. Love Offline Gmail. I had 3 flights yesterday and went through a fair amount of email. Thought that missing features were1) all the shortcut keys2) It seemed to double-send some files when I landed3) When I was in the airport in a layover, I actually *wanted* to stay offline on my Gmail, but it auto-synched and kept uploading new mail. Couldn’t figure out how to turn it off!Good luck!

    1. i love itbut i also had the duplicate send issue

19. Google sent me a Samsung Chromebook after IO this year. I’ve been using it as my primary laptop for a few months now. Offline gmail is huge for me.

    1. Thats awesome.

    2. How does it react with memory (I have one of those tester Chromebooks)…Does it slow it down…

       1. The Samsung is pretty speedy, I have not had any issues with performance.

20. You’ll love it. I’ve been using it since the day it came out. It’s excellent.

    1. yeah – I’ve had no probs with it

    2. i do love iti’m on it nowonly issue is the duplicate sends on reconnect

21. Haven’t tested it out yet, but I also just took this Skillshare class which (for my purposes anyway) has obviated the need for offline Gmail as much. But certainly recommended to anyone looking to hack Gmail as much as possible – Miguel knows his stuff:http://www.skillshare.com/H…

22. I really love that your blog can go from hyper serious complex venture financing to anecdotes about daily life and things that work or don’t work in your life.  We can all relate to those things and I think it makes it much easier to truly digest the complex topics.  It all works nicely together!  

    1. that’s why a personal blog is best

23. Hi,I use two gmail accounts over the web all day every day, it’s a much better experience than using Mail.app, imagine my delight when I installed and set this up on two MacBooks a week before a long flight. Imagine my disappointment when I open up the extension over the sea only to get a ‘This does not work offline message’Great job google!

24. One of my favorite Gmail features is the ability to paste images directly into the web browser email form and fire off the email with the image inline.  I use this several times per day, especially when I am working on product.  Saving a screenshot and then opening an attachment is a hassle. This feature does not work if you enable Offline Gmail.  I guess I could turn it on right before I fly and off afterwards.  That seems like the only time I would ever need it.

25. Well, tell me how it goes with memory management.  I can it see it being very useful with the chromebook- but the thing is constantly short on memory….

26. Wow — offline email. Now Gmail has entered 1998. When I used the word processing function of Google Docs earlier this week and had massive formatting problems, made me yearn for Word 3.0 or perhaps WordPerfect. Give me tools that are comparable to client-server apps that are cloud enabled (you can drop a few features, just not most features) — that’s when you’ll see a major shift.

27. do you use Zemanta to power the related articles section?

    1. yes

28. Since we’re moving towards ubiquitous connectivity, is “Offline” version of any web app really necessary?In other words, will you fund a company that focused on creating offline versions of cloud apps?

29. I did love the original concept of offline gmail, but it was quite buggy and slow. I should try the new app. I hope it supports multiple logins since I use 2-3 ids simultaneously. rajathwww.yourcabs.com

30. Ever since Lion, I have been using Mail as my offline client. Apple has improved Mail a lot. It’s now super convenient to get all my email accounts (Yahoo, gmail), see threads move to folders etc.

31. Yesterday = TheoreticalToday = TacticalTomorrow = Strategic?

32. Offline Gmail works great.  Also liking Offline Google Docs in Chrome.

33. Thanks for the update …

34. Not a big fan of the new offline! I used the old gears version all the time. Problems with this one: have to get used to a new interface (why?), and I, like many people on avc, use priority inbox, and as far as I can tell, you can’t do that offline — does anyone know if this is possible? Finally, the app is being really buggy on my computer. A step back fro gmail, in my mind. 

35. Offline Gmail had the keyboard shortcuts working for sometime, But now they are gone 🙁

36. ,..awesome.., mу bеst friеnd’s mоm mаkes $ 77 аn hоur оn thе cоmputer. Shе hаs bеen оut оf jоb fоr 9 mоnths but lаst mоnth hеr chеck wаs $ 7487 jуst wоrking оn thе cоmputer fоr а fеw hоurs. Rеad аbout it hеre http://alturl.com/ch4q4

37. Free range chickens to offline gmail is certainly a letdown

38. Thanks for making me spurt out some tea in laughter .. not the first response I expected to see. 🙂

39. ME, GRIMLOCK WRITING CODE. 2 TANKER TRUCKS OF COFFE EACH DAY NO PAY FOR SELVES!

40. One of the best parts about Grimlock’s post was that it made SHOUTING ON THE INTERWEBS OKAY AGAIN!

41. Always was going to be a difficult post to follow.Not sure how the next guest post writer is going to be as AWESOME.  HURR HURR….Sorry, I’m having trouble getting out of dino speak.

42. Like they say in Japan, even monkeys fall from trees once in a while.  猿 も 木 から 落ちる! Saru mo ki kara ochiru!It was just too great of a post to follow up on, and expectations just rose a little too high.

43. You are really funny … 

44. MAKE DEAL WITH BARRISTA. 

45. GRIM BE TOO LITERAL ON TUBES. GRIM NEED MORE METAPHOR TO SWING MAGICAL DREAM OF BARRISTA SERVE COFFEE AND BEER ALL DAY/NIGHT TO GIANT LAZY ROBOT DINOSAUR WRITING CODE. SHE HAVE IMPORTANT JOB!! SHE MYTHICAL. SHE FUEL CODE DINO. NO NEED HIRE MORE DINO ROBOTS. GRIM TELL DISQUS MAKE LONGER THREAD OPTION. NEED SIMPLE MANDATE. GRIM NEED LONGER SPACE TO DISCUSS ON DISQUS. MAKE HAPPEN. OR BE EATEN. HURHUR

46. I heard your friend’s mom got busted for credit card fraud.Your spam is a seriously annoying internet SubstrateUndertow ! ! !

47. Curiously, does Disqus have a Dislike button?  This would allow spam to drop to the bottom (my time on Reddit has got me expecting this feature everywhere).

48. You penterosa funnier than fake.

49. MADE DEAL. NO SCREAM, ME NO CHEW. AS MUCH.

50. I don’t believe it does 🙁 I usually take the time to flag the comments and then use the collapse button in hopes that Disqus has some filter feature that realizes when a bunch of people ‘minimize’ a comment 😀

51. there’s a flag button when you role over it to the right of the name.@disqus should automatically remove flagged comments, and then review. rather than leaving the comments up and then reviewing this was done at yahoo and saved them $1m a year on support

52. No.  It does have a flag button.  I have no idea who flags (I flag).  I keep wondering if the more we flag, the more likely the spammer in the background gets ided by the disqus people (@disqus:disqus is this true?)

53. BETTER DEAL = FREE COFFEE + 1 BARRISTA

54. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to brew your own?  We could invent a french press big enough….

55. REPLY TO GRIM ON MAGICAL DREAM. DISQUS NOT WORKING BELOW.BARRISTA CUTE=NO CHEW> USE STRAW. GO DOWN SMOOTHER. LESS NOISE.SUPER SMOOTH BARRISTA INTUBATE GRIM WITH COFFEE ALL DAY. SWITCH TO BEER AT NIGHT. 

56. Thank you for that, I hope that is the case too

57. collapse button?

58. ME, GRIMLOCK, HAVE ENOUGH MONEY FOR COFFEE.ALSO VERY LAZY.DEVOUR STARBUCKS AND LEAVE CHECK BETTER. THEM ALWAYS REBUILD.

59. LIVE IN BARRISTA?THAT LIKE SOME KIND OF MAGICAL DREAM. TELL GRIMLOCK MORE.

60. So glad I had already swallowed when I read this — YOU hurr hurring!  Between you and  @wmoug:disqus  speaking dino, you’re killing me.  If @daveinhackensack:disqus follows suit, I’m done for.(Not sure why Dave Pinsen’s name comes up like that.)

61. @DISQUS:disqus  NOT GOOD FOR LONG TALK. NEED SPAWN NEW THREAD BUTTON.MAYBE THAT HAPPEN IF THEM HIRE MORE GIANT ROBOT DINOSAURS. ‘<RE: PROPOSALSOUND GOOD. EXCEPT PART ABOUT SHOVE TUBES INTO GRIMLOCK. ME NOT REALLY SWING THAT WAY.

62. it’s infectious Donna, think I’m over it now….

63. when he started commenting, he went by dave in hackensack.

64. I flag too. I have no idea why these comments aren’t getting filtered – they’re always almost exactly the same text, or at worst a variant.  

65. @danielha ummm, this thread may be of interest to you….