Offline Gmail Launched

javipas writes "Google developers have announced a new feature part of Gmail Labs that everybody was waiting to see realized. Offline Gmail will allow users to have a partial copy of its Gmail account on their PCs, and access their messages while being offline. The magic of Google Gears comes to the rescue, but the process will not be complete. The syncronization will update the online and offline copies, but Google will use an algorithm that will determine the messages downloaded on each sync (the first being the most important) based on several parameters that point out that message's relevance. This measure will save the process from downloading pieces of information not quite as valuable. US and UK English users can enjoy this feature through the Gmail Labs section."

Comments

IMAP

[Krneki]

Isn't this feature already available on Gmail through IMAP?

Re:IMAP

[Siffy]

IMAP and POP3 both. It even worked on my last phone, to the extent of the phone's capabilities of holding 100 e-mails.

Re:IMAP

[TheKidWho]

Because Google is looking to create a full featured office suite, hence gears.

Re:IMAP

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If you have ever had to walk a n00b, who thinks that webmail is email, through setting up POP3, then you would know the answer to that question.

This isn't about replacing POP3 or IMAP, those are unquestionably superior, this is about expanding the subset of POP3 or IMAP features that can be accessed by people whose technical knowledge doesn't extend far enough to set those up.

Re:IMAP

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

At home, sure, "Offline" is an increasingly alien state. Out and about, though, there are still loads of places where finding a connection just so you can use your webmail for 50 seconds to load your eticket email, itinerary, or whatever is a giant pain in the ass.

Many airports, less civilized coffee shops, cabs, many train stations, and other such locations all tend to have no wifi or pay wifi; but are also locations where access to stored email would be handy.

Re:IMAP

[I'm not really here]

I'm technically inclined enough to set up IMAP and POP3, but I intend to use this feature. Why? Because I like the Gmail interface. I already use Google Docs and Spreadsheets in offline mode, and love it (there are, of course, some rough edges, but MS Word wasn't initially without a number of rough edges either - some would say it still has rough edges).

IMAP is great, but since I already have gears, why should I worry about setting up yet another application? I like the simplicity of Getting Things Done with just Google Apps in Firefox, and adding yet another interface just doesn't make sense.

Re:IMAP

[Anonymous Coward]

But why is POP3, IMAP and SMTP setup so convoluted in all clients? It should be enough to enter your email address and password. The client should be smart enough to deduce the server addresses from the domain (database, or check popular subdomains like mail.example.com and pop.example.com) and/or sniff for available protocols and encryption, or set up web2pop for webmail-only providers. Users could still enter everything manually if those heuristics aren't successful.

I know why Google does what it does, but that doesn't mean I like it. They should offer a smart client on top of open protocols, not instead.

Re:IMAP

[larpon]

just go to:
http://offline.gmail.com/

gmail != thunderbird & imap

[phyrz]

The difference would be that the gmail interface is different to the thunderbird interface and I happen to like the gmail one better?

Re:Why not just use a client?

[c_fel]

Personnally I'd like to use the gmail interface while offline because I think no mail client has a better interface than Gmail's one.

The conversation mode is not just a thread mode : if you archive a thread but receives an answers related to this archived thread, the whole thread will come accompanied with the received message, which gives you the context of the message while facilitating the management of your inbox. If such a feature was implemented in a mail client, I would use the mail client.

"process not complete"? I'll stick with POP

[Bearhouse]

I'm a huge Gmail fan, but - I'll always want to keep a full backup of what I send and receive, and POP does that just fine for me & family.

FTA: "Google ruled out the option of letting users replicate their entire Gmail inboxes to their PCs, which in many cases would translate into gigabytes of data flowing to people's hard drives. It instead developed algorithms that will automatically determine which messages should be downloaded to PCs, taking into consideration a variety of factors that reflect their level of importance to the user, he said. At this point, end-users will not be able to tweak these settings manually."

So, urm, no thanks!

In other news...

[Thanshin]

Google releases new tool to find text inside a document, offline, without having to resort to finding that document online and searching through it with google.

Still surprised about the novelty of such a new development in computer science as a whole, tens of users are already planning to use it soon.

Some reviews from the betatesters:
"What?" - Billy.
"Que?" - Juan.
"300G for $1" - Chinese WoW farmer.

Missing the point

[Admodieus]

While you can use Outlook or Mail.app or Thunderbird to access your GMail via POP3 or IMAP, that's not the point. After all, if you're only going to be using Outlook to get it, why not use Hotmail via the Outlook Connector that synchronizes your email, calendar, and contacts better than Gmail IMAP and Calendar Sync does?

No, the important development here is that now, you don't need an email client. Ever. again. Install Gears, and you can access GMail even when you're on a train or a flight. Moreover, you can set it up as a launchable application from your desktop using Prism, install GMail Notifier, and have the Notifier use Prism as the default "browser" to launch for :mailto links.

The reason most (if not all of us) switched to and stayed with GMail in the first place back in 2004 and 2005 was the interface. Sure, it gave you a ton of storage space compared to Hotmail and Yahoo, but they've since caught up. What Microsoft and Yahoo haven't matched since then is the interface. Show a user IMAP through Thunderbird and Gmail side-by-side and see what interface they prefer.

Also, for businesses that have switched to Google Apps, this provides assurance that critical email correspondence can be accessed even during network or Gmail outages. That's a huge bullet point that Google can use when trying to convince people to adopt their Apps for Domain.

Re:Missing the point

[isorox]

No, the important development here is that now, you don't need an email client. Ever. again. Install Gears, and you can access GMail even when you're on a train or a flight. Moreover, you can set it up as a launchable application from your desktop using Prism, install GMail Notifier, and have the Notifier use Prism as the default "browser" to launch for :mailto links.

So:
Option 1) Install Thunderbird on every PC, set up connection to gmail

Option 2) Install Gears, Prism, Gmail notifier and/or whatever, set up connection to gmail

Re:Yet one more client

[Daengbo]

This is not "a client." This is the normal web interface with some help in the background to keep everything sync'ed up and working when the connection goes down, cleaning up when it comes back up. Repeat. This is just the same old web client. Plus.

Re:"synchro-" not "syncro-"

[duguk]

s/syncronization/synchronization/

My various print dictionaries do not have any words with the prefix syncro- , nor anything related starting with cron-. Think chronology, chronograph, etc.

Crontab? :o)