After a year in development and testing, Google last month added an offline mail client to provide local access to mail folders when there is no Internet connection. Gmail Offline is still experimental and limited to synchronizing a maximum of 10,000 messages. It does not yet provide offline access to other Google features such as Calendar and Documents, but that capability is rumored to be in the works. It is not yet a perfect solution, but it does work rather well. Gmail Offline makes using the free, Web-based email service more efficient and useful.
Ok, I went back and did some more reading and Google says the same thing I did in my first post, but this app makes it easier, so you don't have to "go find Thunderbird and set it up". If computing is so important to a company or to a user, the set up is a minor issue. It takes all of about a minute to set up a pop email account, and you have to set up your in-office email accounts the same way, so again, much ado about nothing, at least to my humble mind...
I have GMail loaded as a POP profile in Thunderbird. It does exactly what this describes, and has been available for quite a long time. If I am not connected to the web, all my messages are available, I can write and save messages to be sent once I am connected, and it updates and syncs up every time I connect and open Thunderbird.
Am I missing something? This really is a bit of hoopla over nothing, isn't it?
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With Gmail Offline, Google's Package Is Almost Too Good to Pass Up
Posted by: Jack M. Germain February 25, 2009 04:00 AMAfter a year in development and testing, Google last month added an offline mail client to provide local access to mail folders when there is no Internet connection. Gmail Offline is still experimental and limited to synchronizing a maximum of 10,000 messages. It does not yet provide offline access to other Google features such as Calendar and Documents, but that capability is rumored to be in the works. It is not yet a perfect solution, but it does work rather well. Gmail Offline makes using the free, Web-based email service more efficient and useful.
Am I missing something? This really is a bit of hoopla over nothing, isn't it?