Google Takes a Giant Leap

For all of us, who love Gmail, the problem has been keeping it offline in the same format. My company, uses Zimbra for our corporate email and the Zimbra Desktop Client Still in Beta, makes this possible. Today Google's announcement on the Official Gmail Blog, made Google take a Giant Step with Gmail

So what have they done ?

The problem with all this online world is that you need to be connected, but you can't be, atleast it's not a reality as yet, so how do you access informaiton offline, store it offline, there have been discussions of POP/IMAP and various protocols, but they are just not as good.



Today Gmail Labs released a new feature that bridges the gap between desktop and web-based applications like never before: Offline Gmail. You can now access your Gmail from your browser any time, whether or not you're online.



Google Gears Offline makes it possible for you to download all your Gmail to your Desktop, every last gigabyte, and in offline mode, is much faster, amazingly fast.

Though still in Beta, and I haven't played with it as yet, as I dont' use Gmail as my first email address, but soon you will see an update from me.

We're making offline Gmail available to everyone who uses Gmail in US or UK English over the next couple of days, so if you don't see it under the Labs tab yet, it should be there soon. Once you see it, just follow these steps to get started:

1. Click Settings and click the Labs tab.
2. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
3. Click Save Changes.
4. After your browser reloads, you'll see a new "Offline0.1" link in the upper righthand corner of your account, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don't already have it.

So, time to wait, and see when you get a chance to try it.

G