Since its inception, Gmail has gotten a lot of attention for its massive email storage limits and ease of finding old email conversations, but what good is all that information if you’re not online? Now you can access your Gmail using Google Gears when you’re offline.

Gears is available for nearly every platform including some mobile devices. You can install Gears into Internet Explorer or Firefox on Windows, Firefox for Linux, Safari or Firefox on a Mac, and mobile devices running Windows Mobile or Android.

The first thing you will need to do to enable offline access to your Gmail is install Google Gears. This browser plugin will store the data on your local machine so that you can read and search through old emails.

Once you download and run the Gears installer, you will have to restart your browser before you can use it. Now you’re ready to use offline Gmail and other applications that use Gears.

Next you have to enable offline email using Gears in your Gmail account. Since this is an experimental feature, click on the Labs section under your Settings menu.

Find the feature labeled Offline Gmail and enable it. Now you should see a link in the upper right hand corner of your browser next to your name labeled, ‘Offline.’

Click on the link to set up your offline cache of Gmail. Google will automatically check to make sure Gears is working correctly and ask for permission to access your account.

Whether you’re catching up on email during a flight or checking the address of a meeting, access to your email when you’re offline can be invaluable. This method means not having to set up an email client that constrains your email to one machine.

The offline Gmail feature could also be outstanding on a mobile phone if it’s possible. Has anyone tried Offline Gmail on their Android or Windows Mobile device?

Related:

Entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 10:17 am under Google, Storage, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Jeyes.
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