Google Rolling Out Offline Support Beginning With Gmail

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Google announced that they were going to bring office access to some of their services during the Google I/O event that took place several months back, however at the time they were not quite as forthcoming as to when it would be available. Well, flash forward till today and Google has returned with both a status update and some good news for Gmail users.

In short, those looking for offline access to Gmail will be the happiest as it is available as of today. That being said, there is a bit of work that you will need to do in order to begin using your Gmail offline. Well, not so much work, as the installation of an extension from the Chrome Web Store. Those interested will need to head on over to the store and look for the appropriately titled — Gmail Offline.

Once installed, Gmail Offline will allow the user to read, respond, organize and even archive their email without having any internet connection. Anyway, once the extension is installed, you simply hit the Gmail Offline icon on Chrome’s “new tab” page when you find yourself without connectivity.

For those who are a bit more curious as to how this will work, Google notes that the Gmail Offline extension is an HTML5-powered app that is “based on the Gmail web app for tablets, which was built to function with or without web access.”

And just like that, those fighting against Chrome OS and the Chromebooks have one less argument to make. Of course, while we say that, we also understand that offline access to your Gmail is only one small piece of the argument.

Needless to say, Google is also getting ready to take care of a few more pieces which will come in the form of offline access for Calendar and Docs. As for when both of these will arrive, so far that is a little more generic in time, but not all that far off. Google did not offer up a specific day as to when, however they did state that this support would be “rolling out over the next week.”

In terms of offline Calendar and Docs, at this time you will be able to view events from your calendars and RSVP to appointments in Calendar and view documents and spreadsheets in Docs. With that, offline editing is still not ready.