The Download Blog

Wondering how Gmail offline works? Here, we walk you through it.

In short, people familiar with Gmail already are mostly familiar with its offline incarnation, which Google said it's releasing gradually to its users in coming days. The biggest difference is of course that you can't see new messages, and e-mails that you send are merely queued up until they can be delivered when a network connection is re-established.

Gmail uses Google's Gears technology, which among other things lets browsers store data on a computer in what's called a local cache. I'm using Firefox 3.1 beta 2, with which Gears isn't compatible, so to access Gmail offline I used Google Chrome instead, which has Gears built in. Since Gears is a relative rarity, though, most folks will have to install it first, which Google walks you through.

There are some limitations to offline Gmail: Only about 10,000 messages will be downloaded--the newest and most recently used. You can't use the contacts tab to manage your connections, though e-mail address autocomplete works so you won't need to worry about remembering e-mail addresses. You can't include attachments on new messages. It's only available in Gmail for English speakers.

But overall, it's certainly worth it if you're ever on a plane, taxi, train, vacation retreat, or coffee shop with an overstressed connection.

Zoho Mail, out of private beta testing, works on the Apple iPhone.

(Credit: Zoho)

Zoho made some significant changes to a core part of its cloud-based application suite Friday: its online mail application now works offline and with Apple's iPhone, and the beta test is now publicly available.

The offline and mobile features are major areas of development for Web-based applications, and cloud computing advocates including Zoho, Yahoo, and Google are racing to build in those features. Offline access helps ameliorate Web-based applications' limitations when no network is available, and mobile access helps fulfill one of the big promised advantages of Web applications: access your documents any time you do have network access.

Offline access, which in Zoho's case is enabled with Google's Gears technology, lets people read and write mail in the browser even when not connected to the network. "Zoho Mail automatically detects your connectivity and switches to online/offline modes seamlessly. While offline, you can respond to your emails as you would normally. When you go back online these emails will be sent out from your outbox," the company said Friday in an announcement.

Easier said than done, perhaps: I just got an indefinite "Loading..." message in both Google Chrome and in Gears-enabled Firefox when trying to access my mail after I shut off my network.

(Update 10:30 a.m. PDT: I thought I'd gone through the offline settings properly, but evidently I hadn't. It does in fact work, mostly, caching messages on my PC and automatically adapting according to whether there's a network. I could write new mails, though Zoho Mail only saves them to the draft folder instead of queuing them up to be sent. And when I tried to reply to an e-mail, I got the error message, "Sorry, this feature is not supported while you are offline!")

And mobile support, while difficult given the primitive state of most mobile devices' Web browsers, can also help when people don't have access to a PC or a Wi-Fi network. "We do plan to support other mobile devices soon," Zoho said. The application worked fine on my iPhone.

Zoho Mail can be accessed with other e-mail clients using the POP (Post Office Protocol) today; the more powerful IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) support is "coming soon."

It has no storage limits or ads. Users can opt to organize mail with either labels, a la Gmail, or Folders, a la Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. And back-and-forth exchanges can be viewed either with Outlook's conventional style or Gmail's conversation view. Also adopted are some Outlook keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-Enter to send a message. The application worked for me, though I missed Yahoo Mail's drag-and-drop abilities and Gmail's stand-out filtering options.

People who sign up for the e-mail get a "username@zoho.com" e-mail address. And through the AdventNet subsidiary's business offering, customers can use Zoho Mail with their own domain.

Zoho's Web-based e-mail client uses Google's Gears to enable offline access to messages. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: CNET News)

My laptop's wireless 3G connection has been crapping out for over a week now. It works for a while, and then it quits. I don't know why. I don't know when it will be fixed, if ever.

I only know that when I'm on the road, I've got no way to get work done. While I wrestle with AT&T's alleged support services, I'm stuck in the breakdown lane of the old info highway.

I need access to Gmail and a half-dozen other sites, but for now I'll have to settle for stale Google Reader news feeds and my Google Docs files, plus a handful of other Web apps. These are the only sites I can access offline via Google Gears, a technology that lets Gears-enabled Web sites store information on your hard drive. That way, you can use the services even when your Internet link has gone south. Or at least that's the idea. In reality, you're still out of touch.

At present, Gears works with with Google Docs but not Spreadsheets or Presentations. You can view your Google Reader feeds offline, but you can't get to your Gmail in-box or Google Calendar. Other sites that are said to support Gears are the WordPress blogging system, ZohoWriter word processor, and Remember the Milk info manager.

I tried Gears with both Google Docs and Google Reader. The first time you visit Google Docs after you install Gears, you see a link labeled Offline in the top-right corner of the screen. Click it to open the Gears warning. After you allow the service to store information on your PC, the sync begins.

The first time you activate Google Reader's offline mode, you're asked to give the service permission to store files on your PC.

(Credit: Google)

The initial sync can take a few minutes, but the process is faster subsequently. The green check mark in the top-right of the Google Docs window indicates that you're online. Click it and then click Settings to view your offline options.

The top button in the resulting dialog box simply puts a shortcut on your desktop. The second button lets you disable the offline feature. There are also two links in the dialog: the top link opens a simple information page, while the bottom link displays technical information about the sync, including the files you've downloaded.

Google Docs lets you access online files without a network link via the Google Gears technology.

(Credit: Google)

You'll find more information about using Gears for offline access at the Google Docs help site. Note that even though Google Spreadsheets is said not to work with Gears, my online spreadsheets were downloaded just the same.

Google Reader's offline feature works a little differently. After you install Gears, you'll see a green arrow icon in the top-right corner of the Reader window. The downward arrow indicates that you're online. Click it to see a pop-up asking for permission to download data.

After you click Allow, the items in your feeds will be downloaded to your PC. The green downward arrow becomes a blue upward arrow, which means you're in Reader's offline mode. Click the arrow icon again to return to online mode.

It's nice to be able to access online files and news feeds without an Internet link, but what I really need is ubiquitous network access, which is what I thought I was getting with my 3G data link. Wireless data services simply aren't reliable, and offline browsing is no substitute for real-time access to e-mail and Web sites.

Maybe someday Google's new patent will be able to improve the situation. Or maybe WiMax will finally be ready for prime time.

All I know is, what we have now just won't do.

As promised in May, Google has brought the open-source Gears technology to Apple's Safari, augmenting some browser abilities such as using Gears-tailored Web sites while offline.

The company announced a beta version of Gears for Safari (DMG file download link) on the Gears users mailing list Monday.

"We would love for you to install it and test it and file bug reports so we can polish it and find all the corner cases," said Google's Jeremy Moskovich.

Gears extends a browser so, for example, some Google Docs can be edited or viewed while the user isn't connected to a network. It also can speed up use of the WordPress blogging software and some operations at MySpace, and Google is expanding its scope to geolocation services and other areas, too.

The software requires Safari 3.1.1 on Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 or Leopard 10.5.3, he said.

Gears already works on Firefox and Internet Explorer; Opera is working on a version for both its desktop and mobile browsers.

(Via Google Operating System.)

The idea behind WikiTaxi is so simple that the utility of it should be obvious: take Wikipedia offline. How cool is that? The real question is, though, does it work? Is it even possible to take the massive online encyclopedia offline in a usable format?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes. WikiTaxi compresses all of Wikipedia into a database that's searchable, fully usable, and small enough to fit on an 8GB USB drive. It grabs the Wikipedia database dump every few weeks, keeping your offline entries up-to-date with the latest changes. There's also an option in the program to update it yourself, if you happen to venture near enough to an Internet connection.

As a single-file app, WikiTaxi is easy to manage--hence the portability. To install it, you extract the file to any folder. When you open it, it opens to a randomly selected page, and you can browse from there. WikiTaxi does leave Wikipedia's images behind to keep the file size down, so if you need graphics this might not be for you. Also, given the nature of WikiTaxi, don't forget that external links are not supported for obvious reasons. Internal links should still work, though. So as a growing number of people try to take advantage of the Internet's resources without getting all the online distractions, WikiTaxi is a smart way to bus around one of the best tools on the Web.

As you might have noticed, Power Downloader hasn't been around for the past few weeks. Even on vacation and out of range of a Wi-Fi signal, Power D's been able to look up any question he has on Wikipedia. He managed that little superheroic feat with a sharp program called WikiTaxi.

WikiTaxi compresses Wikipedia down to offline size.

(Credit: WikiTaxi)

WikiTaxi compresses all of Wikipedia into a database that's searchable, fully usable, and small enough to fit on an 8 GB USB drive. Power D knew not to be skeptical about the entries getting old because WikiTaxi grabs the Wikipedia database dump every few weeks. There's also an option in the program to update it yourself, if you do happen to find yourself near a fleeting connection to the Internet.

As a single-file app, WikiTaxi is easy to manage--hence the portability. To install it, you extract the file to any folder. When you open it, it opens to a randomly selected page, and you can browse from there. Power D cautions users who want the images from Wikipedia, though, that WikiTaxi abandons those to keep the file size down. Also, internal links are supported, but external ones are not for obvious reasons.

For those who want to learn more, the WikiTaxi site explains in further detail how the database, compression, and installation works.