Gmail grows up with offline e-mail access

Significantly increasing the utility and competitiveness of its Web-based e-mail service, Google is enabling an experimental ability to read, write, and search Gmail messages even while not connected to the network.

Google believes almost religiously in cloud computing, the idea that computer applications and data live on the Internet rather than on PCs. But there are times when the network is inaccessible, and generally Web-based applications like today's Gmail effectively seize up under those circumstances.

Offline sidesteps that problem, the classic example being a busy executive traveling on a plane. And offline Gmail access begins a new chapter for Google's ambition to appeal to business customers for services such as Google Apps, of which Gmail is a component.

"This is a feature we've heard loud and clear the enterprise wants," said Todd Jackson, Gmail's product manager.

In coming days, Google will let Gmail users test the Web-based e-mail service even when there's no network.

(Credit: Google)

Trying to sign up business customers generally means wooing them away from the dominant e-mail products, Microsoft's Exchange server software and Outlook PC software. Google and Microsoft began in separate spheres, but are ever-closer competitive rivals, each with a strong cash-generating business that can be used to subsidize forays into other markets.

There's more, too. Google Apps customers will get another major offline option "soon," too: Google Calendar access, though not initially the ability to create new entries. If the organization's administrator enables the "New Features" option, each person within that organization will get access to the calendar, Google said.

New features help make Gmail more compelling for business customers, but for many, a bigger problem is the fact that Gmail still sports its beta tag, said Gartner analyst David Smith.

"That's one of the biggest stumbling blocks for businesses," Smith said. "You're hard-pressed to find any businesses who decide to go into production with anything that a vendor calls beta, no matter how good it is." Google promises customers will get 99.9 percent availability through a service level agreement for Google Apps, which includes Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs.

Cloud vs. PC
And Microsoft, while not turning on a dime, isn't counting on a future that consists exclusively of PC-based Office. It already has a product, Office Live Workspace that lets users share and view--but not edit--Office documents online, and the next version of Office will run in a browser.

Philosophically, though, Microsoft remains firmly tethered to the PC, while Google wants to move as fast as possible to Web-based applications.

"We think the browser is the ideal platform for deploying all kinds of applications. That's where Google is placing its bet," Jackson said. "But people are traditionally limited by the speed and connectivity of the Internet. We want to fill in those gaps."

Google already developed open-source technology called Gears that helps further this cloud computing agenda by storing Web data on PC, and Gmail, used by millions, could help coax more people to install Gears. That, in turn, could help solve the chicken-and-egg problem that currently means it's not worthwhile for most Web application programmers to build in Gears support.

Greater Gears support could help other cloud-computing companies, including Zoho, which already has offline access for its Web-based e-mail application.

It's not as if offline Gmail were completely impossible. People can set up software such as Outlook or Thunderbird to read and write e-mails, for example. But offline Gmail means people won't have to learn a new interface.

Offline Gmail has been in testing for months, though Jackson wouldn't share specifics about exactly how long.

What can offline Gmail do?
"We wanted the user experience to be almost identical to the experience you get when you're online," Jackson said.

Offline Gmail stores a copy of a user's inbox on a personal computer. Most people will have to install it, a process Google walks you through, but it's built into Google's Chrome browser.

Once Gears is installed and offline access is enabled, the software automatically detects when a person's network connection is working. If the network is good, Gmail works as usual. If it's bad, it goes into offline mode, sending unsent messages and retrieving new ones when the connection is restored.

And if the network is dodgy, a person can use the intermediate "flaky connection mode," which for example queues a message to be sent immediately by storing it to the hard drive then actually sends it as soon as it can. Google positions this as useful for coffee shops and poaching a neighbor's weak-signal wireless network, but I think of this as "tech conference mode."

When enabled, offline Gmail begins by downloading, in the background, a copy of a user's archive to the user's personal computer. But the software stores about 10,000 e-mails, so heavy users won't get a complete archive.

Gmail automatically updates the local cache of messages with new and recently read items and with messages associated with a particular label on which a person has clicked, Jackson said.

Imperfect
Not everything works, though.

One big missing piece is the ability to add attachments to new messages, though attachments are visible with existing messages.

Another is the contacts tab, so forget about managing e-mail lists or adding new addresses while offline. The autocomplete option works, though, so there's no need to start remembering e-mail addresses.

English-speaking Gmail users will be able to enable offline access as Google gradually adds the ability over the next "couple" of days, said Gmail engineer Andy Palay in a blog post. "Offline Gmail is still an early experimental feature, so don't be surprised if you run into some kinks that haven't been completely ironed out yet," Palay said.

What kinds of problems occur?

"We've seen issues with the local cache getting out of sync. You have to refresh the browser, and that gets you going again," Jackson said. "In some rare circumstance, it has to be fully flushed, so we ask to disable and re-enable the feature."

But these should be unusual problems, he said: "It's been in testing for awhile on all 20,000 Googlers, so it's gotten some good testing."

[kheechun]

Heard that, Microsoft? Enhance the HTTP mail support for Outlook, maybe even make it native instead of an additional plugin. The Outlook Connector is far from perfect...

[Vegaman_Dan]

It'a already done. You can use Outlook Web Access from any browser including Firefox and Chrome. There is no need for a plugin for current versions of Office.

[kheechun]

Does Outlook Web Access support offline access for free msn/live/hotmail? I'm not too sure about that. And, you need a non-email dedicated web browser, with all the redundant tools and tabs for email purposes, wasting screen space, that's worse than a plugin, to me.

[gggg sssss]

What are you talking about? Outlook 2003 and 2007 have built in support for HTTP mail - have since 2003 in fact.

[cjbauman]

Here here, anything that can make the market more competitive has to be a good thing.

[sting7k]

Just like they said here, Gmail doesn't really grow up until it drops that beta tag. What is it, 6 years now in beta?

[nicmart]

I get enormous benefit from Google's products. It (along with Apple) has long ago replaced Microsoft as the dominant player on my desktop.

[daengbo]

Your free GMail will always be in Beta because that's where Google tests new features. Paying clients don't get a beta version: they get the tested features. Read the ToS.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Daengbo wrote:

"Read the ToS. "

I have and if your company is okay with another company going through your email to data mine it for advertising purposes, then that raises serious questions if your company is one that I want to do business with.

[hhs2112]

Gotta agree with Dan - what company would want Google rifling through their confidential data; R&D plans, personnel and salary data, strategic plans, product pricing, etc. Keep in mind Google was the *only*company in Privacy International?s internet privacy report to receive a rating of ?Hostile to Privacy? (the worst possible rating). What firm, with even a cursory understanding of the need for privacy/security, would do this?

Sending snapshots of your roommate?s drunken bender to 100 of your closest friends is one thing, sending salary data for 100 of your employees is something else. I can see the lawyers licking their chops already?

[sar10538]

The difference between Google and Microsoft is that Google acknowledges their software may have bugs, Microsoft ships it as production when it really should be labelled beta, or even alpha in a lot of cases. Lets face it with each new release of a Microsoft software version, it's not till the second, or at lest the first, service pack is released before it's reasonably stable and during that time the functionality of the product frequently gets things added to it. That does not sound like production ready software to me.

[pretenderkc]

Google is good at taking your money but no LIVE support person to be found.

i upgraded the Google Earth to Pro. paid the money. found out the hard way that my enormously famous GPS receiver doesn't work properly in Google Earth. tried different settings in GE to no avail. Googled for solutions but no answer to be found.
lesson learned. never paid for a product when the company doesn't have any type of support for their product.

Skype is another one.
live and learned.

i do use those products but only the FREE stuff.

Microsoft got nothing to worry about if their competitors have no LIVE support staff.

[BIGELLOW]

Way to spew lies. If you pay for Google Apps, you get phone support for critical issues. If you go for the free stuff, then you don't get phone support. It's just that simple. Google Earth might be a different issue, but this article isn't about Google Earth.

[pretenderkc]

BIGFELLOW:

Google Earth is Google Apps, isn't it not genius?
before calling somebody a liar, check your facts.

this article is about Google company and how they conduct their business.
Google Earth Pro is a paid service.
if they have a link with their LIVE support number, respond back to me and provide the link that contained that phone number.
i'd like to have a chat with Google Earth Pro live support staff.

[businesscontacts]

pretenderkc:

Hold your horses. We have a semantic problem here. What BIGFELLOW calls Google Apps is this

http://www.google.com/a

[pretenderkc]

@businesscontacts:

thanks for the link.
as of today, i didn't renew my GE Pro due to no support.

it's one thing when you paid for the product and it's another thing when it's a free product.
a paid product should have support, warranty and updates.
my initial post still stands.

anyhow, my GPS Receiver (USGlobalSat BU-353 WaterProof WAAS) works great with other NMEA compliant software except GE Pro.

[daengbo]

"New features help make Gmail more compelling for business customers, but for many, a bigger problem is the fact that Gmail still sports its beta tag, said Gartner analyst David Smith. "

This gets trotted out every time Google Apps comes up. I think it must be one of Microsoft's talking points. Surprisingly, though, David Smith is mistaken (read as "blatantly, and probably intentionally, wrong"), and you are in the same boat for taking his assertions at face value without doing any fact checking of your own.

GOOGLE APPS STANDARD EDITION AGREEMENT -- http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/standard_terms.html
This is for the *free* version, which sports the newest features, and the contract warns that:
"THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED WITHOUT CHARGE FOR BETA TESTING PURPOSES ONLY AND THE PARTIES AGREE THAT THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS REPRESENT A REASONABLE ALLOCATION OF RISK UNDER THIS AGREEMENT." (paragraph 15)

GOOGLE APPS PREMIER EDITION AGREEMENT -- http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/premier_terms.html
This is the paid-for version, the one that businesses will use. The equivalent paragraph (14) is much shorter about limitation of liability and doesn't use the term "beta." In fact, "beta" isn't anywhere on the page. Why? That's because the business version is older and tested in the free version before being rolled into the main product.

The rub? Google's service isn't beta for those that pay. Businesses which use GMail are going to pay. The other rub? This information is available and easy to find right on Google's page. You really should have checked your facts before rushing to publish.

p.s. The free education edition isn't beta, either. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/education_terms.html

[globalist_agenda]

Google is only 10 years behind! What is so amazing about an online/offline message store? Netscape Mail had this 10 years ago. Microsoft has had this for at least that long. Can't the Google PhDs come up with something new? How about a synchronized (replicated) message store. Power users with multiple computers would like an alternative to Exchange and Notes. Hell, if Google just offered Outlook .pst file sync I'd pay them. It stinks that Microsoft only supports one Exchange Offline Store per profile.

[feranick]

Ehmm... Outlook live has offline support? Netscape.com had back when it existed, offline support? No. I guess you are confusing offline support with synchronization. Outlook (like many mail clients) has obvious synchronization capabilities (through IMAP, which isn't MS invention). But, AFAIK, offline capabilities on a web-based mail application is still pretty much a novelty, and certainly not something supported by neither MS nor Netscape.

[thopwoo]

What's the deal with comparing MS Office with Gmail in the story? Sure Microsoft is bringing more and more of Office online every day, but the story was about Gmail. A more accurate comparison would be Microsoft Online Services where MS already offers Exchange Online which yes supports offline email already.

[jszurek]

We already have a world standard for offline email. It is called POP. Grow up Google! I don't want Gmail because I can't get Gmail where I get the rest of my mail.

[gggg sssss]

You are doubtlessly referring to IMAP? POP is so 1980's

[ducttape36]

I actually use outlook to connect to all my email addresses, including my gmail one.

[thajuggla4478]

I have been using Outlook with Gmail for over a year now, every since I set up my gmail account. Not sure why this is relevant.

[cowatson]

Why is this news? Doesn't Windows Live Mail app already do this for gmail?

[fewiii]

Wow. Next thing you know, they'll be introducing the whole idea of being able to download your inbox into an email client, and intorduce the concept of apps that run almost entirely on a local PC. The innovation just never stops....

[DADSGETNDOWN]

Hmm Lol. I don't get it.
If you are "offline" and have not yet viewed the content, and you have no internet connection,
how the heck can you be online ? AND retrieve the online content ?
Ha, Impossible.
On the other hand if it is nothing but Outlook and Outlook Express, you have the content on your computer but you CAN NOT get new content if you have no connection.
What ESP ? a Crystal ball come on now.

[fewiii]

LOL! I was wondering about all that myself!