Setting Up Offline Gmail Access

Want to be able to access your Gmail emails even if you don't have access to the internet? This article will walk you through the steps and options for turning on Gmail offline.

March 30, 2021
Valiant Technology
2 min

Using Gmail through the browser has a lot of benefits including the ability to check your mail from any device. By default you still need an internet connection to view even your old mail. You can avoid this by turning on offline access to your Gmail account.

Important note: This will only work for Chrome. Other browsers will not have this option applied in this manner.

Enable Gmail offline in settings

First, go to your Gmail settings. You can access this by clicking the gear icon in the upper right and then clicking on see all settings.

Locate and click on the offline tab in the second row.

Check the box to enable offline mail. This page will expand to include all of the offline mail options.

This options menu shows how much space is available on your computer for mail storage. Use this information to select a retention rate from the sync settings dropdown menu. If you don’t have a lot of space, choose the option to store emails from the last 7 days. If you would like access to older emails, select 30 or 90 days.

Select your Gmail offline options.

Then, choose your security settings. Each option has an explanation of what the setting will do. The first option will allow emails to be stored on your device for the full retention period. If you are using a computer that may be shared in the future, or are worried about your email being accessed if your computer is lost or stolen, select the second option.

Lastly, hit save changes. You may get a reminder that offline mail isn’t recommended for shared computers. Just click the “got it” button to confirm. Depending on your settings selections, bandwidth, and computer resources the initial sync may take a few moments before it is ready.

To use Gmail offline, open Chrome and go to mail.google.com. You can also bookmark this site to make access easier. Some people choose to make a shortcut on their desktop that goes straight to Gmail in Chrome. Just make sure Chrome is set as your default browser before doing this.

When you compose an email while offline, feel free to click to send as normal. These messages will be placed into your outbox and sent automatically as soon as you have internet access again.