Access Google Apps Mail During Outages or While Your're Offline

Semptember 01, 2009
Some users experienced a Google Apps Mail service outage today, and although Google's Mail Servers were unreachable, we were still able to access our mail, docs, and calendars.

You can do the same by enabling Google's Offline features in labs. We'll quickly cover the steps and guide you through enabling these features for Google Apps Mail. So even if you're offline, you can open your web browser, and access your Google Apps Mail, Docs, and Calendar just like you're used to.

About Offline Functionality

Google Applications support Google Gears, an open source browser extension that allows Google Apps to store the information it needs to run, all on your computer.

Google Mail for example, can then cache the actions you take on your computer while constantly searching for a connection in the background. When it finds one, Google Mail sends the messages stored in your outbox, checks for new mail, and automatically syncs the changes you made while offline with Google Servers.

You get the same Google Apps experience whether your online or offline, all in a web browser, just like you're used to.

First, Install Google Gears

Before you can enable offline functionality for Google Apps, you need to install Google Gears. Gears is absolutely free and available for Windows, Windows Mobile (IE Mobile, Opera Mobile), Mac (Firefox, Safari), Linux and Android.

Visit gears.google.com to install Gears on your computer.

Enable Google Mail Offline Access

NOTE: You'll need to have access to your mail settings. If you're offline or currently experiencing a service outage, you'll need to wait until you can obtain a connection to Google Servers.

• 1). Login to your Google Mail, if you're not already logged in.
• 2). On the top right corner, click on "Settings"
  
  
• 3). Locate the "Labs" tab.
• 4). Select the Enable radio option and click on the "Save Changes" button
• 5). Once the "Offline" feature is enabled, you should see a new link: "Offline^0.2" available just before your "Settings" link. If not, try logging out, closing your browser, and logging back in.
• 6). Simply click on the "Offline^0.2" link and follow the prompts.
• 7). Gears will continue it's setup
  
  
• 8). After Setup has completed, you can immediately synchronize your mail, and customize your offline settings:

Finally, Enable other Google Applications

Now that you've enabled Offline access to Google Mail, follow the same procedures to enable Offline functionality for your Google Docs, and Calendar.

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