Did you know you can use Gmail offline? Like the web app. I just tried it, simulating offline in DevTools like this:

The page did load up fine and it let me look like I was responding to an email, but when I went to send it…

I just didn’t RTFM and check this box in settings.

After flipping that on, eventually I was able to respond to an email and send it and it actually sent when I went back online, so that’s nice. It was pretty janky though. I could see the web app still trying to send tons of network requests and failing. Lots of broken images spread around, and even sending the email inspired no confidence as it looked like it was “stuck” in the sending state. Looks like that feature needs some work.

But, if you use a native app, I suspect the experience is generally better. I know Thunderbird has offline mode. I’ve been using Mimestream with my Gmail account and it’s offline support works fine. Mail.app can do it.

It’s just nice to know. Say you find out your next flight doesn’t have WiFi, or the internet at the office goes out for a couple hours (both have happened to me in the past month), you can still do email stuff.