Gmail all the time, even offline
By Anick Jesdanun |
October 21, 2011, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
GOOGLE'S new software for using Gmail without an Internet connection comes across as a throwback to an era when we weren't connected all the time and on all sorts of devices, from phones to iPads.
These days, if I need to read or write an e-mail when I'm not at a regular computer, I can usually do so on my phone. Wi-Fi is also plentiful when I need to catch up on messaging using my laptop.
But I found myself lacking both options during a recent trip abroad. Fortunately, Google recently came out with Offline Google Mail, software that lets me use Gmail while disconnected. Messages that I write, delete or move to a folder - or label, as Gmail calls it - get synced with my Gmail account the next time I'm online. I can also read messages that had been sent to me before going offline.
As a result, I was generally able to get away with buying a half-hour or an hour of Internet access at a time in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, where "complimentary Internet" is a term foreign to hotels.
I composed e-mails on a flight to New Zealand and had them sent during a brief layover at the Auckland airport. I read and wrote more e-mails on the flight back to the US and synced the account once more at my parents' home in New Jersey. By the time I was back in my apartment in New York, I was caught up on three weeks of e-mail.
The software itself was easy to install and use, once I found it. It requires a Gmail account and won't work with Yahoo, Hotmail and other Web-based e-mail services.
Also, it works only with Google's Chrome browser, which means I had to install it on my laptop to start things off. I then had to open the browser and open a new tab to find a link to Google's Chrome Web Store. After that, I had to find the free Offline Google Mail software among the scores of offerings at the store.
The software is still in a "beta" test mode, a label that Google Inc sometimes slaps on products for months or years. That's a way of saying you may encounter glitches.
I indeed ran into a few problems.
The key problem is that messages stored offline sometimes disappear. That included an e-mail I had composed to send later. As a result, I wasn't able to depend on the software to retrieve notes that I had stored as e-mail messages, nor was I able to respond to a number of e-mails that went missing.
I learned from Google later that the software typically keeps only messages from the past three days and sometimes up to a week. It also keeps older messages that Google's technology thinks is important. Drafts and messages marked with a star are always stored, but you have to remember to do that in the short time you might have online.
The software also failed at times to store attachments, which is a problem when someone sends me a document I need to review. I might have run into a storage cap of 25 megabytes for all attachments combined, which isn't much when Gmail allows attachments that large on a single e-mail. The software was also inconsistent in loading images, which means I could miss good deals from retailers that spell out offers in graphics.
Two other faults: There are limits in my ability to organize messages using labels. I could attach existing ones, but I couldn't create new ones. That could keep my main inbox cluttered. And the interface feels like Gmail of the early days, not the dynamic website of today that grew out of years of user feedback, redesigns and upgrades.
Still, it's a good alternative to standalone software when you need only casual access to your messages offline.
These days, if I need to read or write an e-mail when I'm not at a regular computer, I can usually do so on my phone. Wi-Fi is also plentiful when I need to catch up on messaging using my laptop.
But I found myself lacking both options during a recent trip abroad. Fortunately, Google recently came out with Offline Google Mail, software that lets me use Gmail while disconnected. Messages that I write, delete or move to a folder - or label, as Gmail calls it - get synced with my Gmail account the next time I'm online. I can also read messages that had been sent to me before going offline.
As a result, I was generally able to get away with buying a half-hour or an hour of Internet access at a time in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, where "complimentary Internet" is a term foreign to hotels.
I composed e-mails on a flight to New Zealand and had them sent during a brief layover at the Auckland airport. I read and wrote more e-mails on the flight back to the US and synced the account once more at my parents' home in New Jersey. By the time I was back in my apartment in New York, I was caught up on three weeks of e-mail.
The software itself was easy to install and use, once I found it. It requires a Gmail account and won't work with Yahoo, Hotmail and other Web-based e-mail services.
Also, it works only with Google's Chrome browser, which means I had to install it on my laptop to start things off. I then had to open the browser and open a new tab to find a link to Google's Chrome Web Store. After that, I had to find the free Offline Google Mail software among the scores of offerings at the store.
The software is still in a "beta" test mode, a label that Google Inc sometimes slaps on products for months or years. That's a way of saying you may encounter glitches.
I indeed ran into a few problems.
The key problem is that messages stored offline sometimes disappear. That included an e-mail I had composed to send later. As a result, I wasn't able to depend on the software to retrieve notes that I had stored as e-mail messages, nor was I able to respond to a number of e-mails that went missing.
I learned from Google later that the software typically keeps only messages from the past three days and sometimes up to a week. It also keeps older messages that Google's technology thinks is important. Drafts and messages marked with a star are always stored, but you have to remember to do that in the short time you might have online.
The software also failed at times to store attachments, which is a problem when someone sends me a document I need to review. I might have run into a storage cap of 25 megabytes for all attachments combined, which isn't much when Gmail allows attachments that large on a single e-mail. The software was also inconsistent in loading images, which means I could miss good deals from retailers that spell out offers in graphics.
Two other faults: There are limits in my ability to organize messages using labels. I could attach existing ones, but I couldn't create new ones. That could keep my main inbox cluttered. And the interface feels like Gmail of the early days, not the dynamic website of today that grew out of years of user feedback, redesigns and upgrades.
Still, it's a good alternative to standalone software when you need only casual access to your messages offline.
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