I know Gmail has legions of fanboys in the tech press, but I have to confess that I'm not in this group. Its interface lacks usability and looks like nothing more than a spreadsheet cluttered with links and buttons. I also find its conversation view problematic to work with at times, though it can be helpful in compressing lots of emails on the same subject. A year and a half ago, you could get offline access to Gmail using Google's Gears runtime, and after abandoning that technology, Google has finally come out with the HTML5-based Offline Google Mail.
Unlike Gears, and though it's based on the supposedly standard HTML5 standard, the Offline Google Mail Web app won't work in any browser other than Chrome, even though several other browsers have long supported HTML5 storage. This new version is available as a Chrome Web Store "app," something we've seen more and more of lately, restricting Google services and features to the company's own browser.
Offline Docs and Calendar are coming, too, and arguably Docs is the most important: The inability to work on word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations while you're out of Internet coverage would seem to be a major barrier to Google Apps' acceptance, and are critical for Google's browser-only Chromebooks to get off the ground. We'll have to see whether all those capabilities appear at once, and how full-featured they are.
Offline email viewing is hardly a new concept. You could still view your Gmail account in other mail apps, like Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, or Windows Live Mail, and it may be preferable to continue doing that, since Google's offline client is pretty limited. Google's blog post, however, acknowledges that Offline Google Mail is pretty much a port of the tablet version of Gmail.
Installing
Though the hot new Web app from Google can be found in the Chrome Web Store, it's not especially highlighted on the store's banner, New and Noteworthy, or Featured sections. Installation is a only a matter of finding Offline Google Mail, and hitting the "Add to Chrome" button and then "Install" on the confirmation dialog box. After this, the Web app's blue "M" icon appears in the Apps section of your Chrome new tab page.
Of course, you have to be signed into your Google account to complete this setup. Contrary to some reports, there was no problem with having the older Gmail "app" installed alongside the Offline Google Mail app. But Offline Google Mail has no support for multiple mail accounts, like you get in Windows Live Mail or pretty much any other modern mail client. I was unable to get the app working in a Google Apps account, getting the message, "Chrome Web Store is not available," though a colleague managed to, and a big point of the feature is to support corporate Apps users and Chromebook business users.
Using Offline Google Mail
When I first ran the Offline Google Mail app, I had to select and okay an "Allow offline mail" setup page, which seems odd, given the name of the app. I'm not sure why you'd use this app if you're only going to use it while online, since the regular Gmail app/site is more capable. Even before okaying this, I saw a new system tray icon in my Windows 7 taskbar for Chrome. Interestingly, this icon wasn't just about the mail client, but offered purely Chrome browser functions, such as a task manager.
After okaying offline mail reading, I was immediately taken to my inbox. As advertised, it looked identical to the Gmail client you see on an iPad or an Android tablet in landscape view, with the mail headers in a list on the left, and preview of the mail contents on the right. This is almost worth the installation of Offline Google Mail for me, since the regular Gmail site doesn't offer a preview of mail contents unless you install an experimental Labs add-on
.
For the current mail you're looking at, a drop-down menu lets you do the usual mail functions—Reply, Move, Label, Mute, Report spam, Print, and Mark as Unread. Buttons above let me delete or archive the piece of mail. One odd limitation was that if an email contained multiple addressees, I only saw Reply All; there was no Reply to Sender option, though I could remove other addressees individually later.
A Menu back-arrowed button takes you to Gmail's organizational features. These include: Priority Inbox's Important category; Everything; "Labels" (Google's word for mail folders) such as Starred, Sent, Outbox, Drafts, Junk; and any personal folders you've created. Important appears in both the Priority Inbox and Label sections, which seems an unnecessary duplication. The interface does implement conversation view, showing the names of participants and number of emails in parentheses, and you can collapse individual messages with a button to the right above the message area.
Then I pulled the Internet plug, switched off Wi-Fi, and started composing an email. I could even attach a file, but there were no formatting options at all for text, and no type-ahead suggestions when entering email addresses. I couldn't include a signature, or specify an importance level—it's pretty much the most bare-bones mail app you can imagine. If you're used to all the features like these you get in Outlook (which, by the way, has worked offline for decades) you'll be sorely disappointed.
The mailer does, however, point out misspellings with squiggly underlines, and you can select a correction from a right-click context menu, and even add spellings to your custom dictionary. And if you're not ready to send the mail (maybe you want to add some formatting later in a more powerful client), you can just hit the Save button. If you want to scrap your draft, the final piece of the interface is for you—the Discard button. A tooltip appears in the bottom of the Inbox window apprising you of what's in your outbox.
After this inspection of the interface, it was time to plug the PC's Ethernet cable back in and wait for the test emails I'd composed to be on their way. For a while, the tooltip showing emails in the outbox remained unchanged, even when its "Last Checked indicator said "Just now." Soon after, it periodically read "Checking," but after that check, it still showed two messages waiting in the outbox. After the connection was completely restored, the test mail was sent at the next check. The mail's timestamp reflected when it was actually sent, rather than when I hit Send after composing it. This means you lose track of when you were actually working on an email.
It's a Start
Chromebook users can now do something with their laptops if they don't have Internet connectivity. When this capability arrives for Docs, it will really make the new class of computers useful offline. But the email client is as basic as it gets—forget addressing multiple. Non-Chromebook users who prefer Firefox or a browser other than Chrome also need not apply. Another problem is that you'll probably find yourself having to switch between the more-capable Gmail interface for online use and this offline app when offline. Existing mail apps like Outlook and Thunderbird offer you the same full-featured interface for both offline and online use.
For more, see the slideshow above.
Not for Firefox
Though it's based on the supposedly standard HTML5 standard,
the Offline Google Mail Web app won't work in any browser other than Chrome,
even though several other browsers have long supported HTML5 storage.
Install Confirmation
You must be logged into
your Google Account to see this complete the installation. Once you do, Chrome
adds an icon to Windows' system tray.
Allow Offline Mail
The new Gmail web app is
named Offline Google Mail, so it seems odd that you have to choose whether to
allow offline mail when you install it, but some may just want to use it
instead of Gmail.
Offline Google Mail Inbox
Offline Google Mail for
Chrome, like its tablet counterpart, shows subject lines in a list on the left
in a landscape view, and a message preview in the right.
