A report from India’s Hindustan Times indicates that Google is prepping an offline version of Gmail.
It’s claimed that a client has already been designed, is in testing, and runs (not surprisingly) on Google Gears. Google has previously offered an offline version of Google Reader using the Gears browser plugin. Other companies embracing the Gears platform include Zoho.
Although the story is unconfirmed by Google at this stage, it would be fair to presume that an offline version of Gmail happening is a given, the only question is when it will be available. Google continues to put together its jigsaw puzzle of office functionality as it builds a serious Microsoft Office competitor.
Why buy MS Office any more? I know I never will.
Meh.
If I want to use an offline client, I’d just use thunderbird or something.
I thought the online applications were the reason Microsoft was in trouble. I wonder what ever happened to ‘The Network is the Computer’.
I personally like my offline applications just fine, and being a Gmail user I may try this, but it’s interesting that it would be a big deal since the online apps were supposed to be the killers in and of themselves.
WOW. Its really a cool news
An Grammatical Error in a Post Title: Awesome
So, first all those “hip” startups and companies like Google are desperately pushing the argument that the desktop we’ve known for years is out and not cool enough….and now they’re all gonna develop an offline client!?
Apart from that, you would need a browser on some sort of OS to run those applications anyway.
Huh?
To Google peeps reading this:
Please please please please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE include an import feature from Thunderbird to Gmail.
Love, the Internets.
With all the new mobile devices that are coming out now (iPhone, HTC - this comment is being done with my HTC-S730 phone) I don’t see the offline stuff as important as the products that integrate well with mobile platforms. I honestly have not used an offline mail client for awhile now.
It’s so wonderful. I need Gmail offline and I hope this news is trust!
Is it just me or does google gears for reader running in Firefox 2.0.0.6 on a Mac broken?
google’s down? or is it just me?
I hope its better than the Google reader client. That thing was buggy. I turned the plug in off. I would try it though. I wish the gmail team could tweek the interface to i could get a three pane view of my mail.
Can’t wait. Hope this is official.
offline email? hmm
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thats means Google is going from web to Desktop and MS and othere companies are coming from desktop to web…
There are already clients out there that work as offline gmail clients. In fact any client supporting secure POP3 access will work. e.g., Mac Mail.
I use Mac Mail for this. It’s secure (SSL) and is configured to save all mail on gmail’s servers. I read mail with Mac Mail and then just delete it as a copy is always saved online.
Google already offers pop3 besides there have been client like these for a few years now:
http://gmailerxp.sourceforge.net/
If any of this is true, this is just Google trying to increase their hold on the desktop the way MS has done so well all these years.
I second #7. This isn’t the place for feature requests, but Google doesn’t seem to read the officially-submitted ones.
PLEASE GOOGLE, provide a tool to import Mbox files into Gmail. Facilitating the transfer of information is a no-brainer for an information company, but you still haven’t done it.
One step closer to a Windows competitor…?
good ‘ld Duncan! Haven’t you heard of this thing called email?
Apart from offline email browsing, which I would appreciate on flights, what else would a desktop client deliver?
To those who say that Google is taking the wrong way with offline apps, I think that Google’s primary market still online apps. They are just trying to patch some weakness of the online model.
Well if I have to play around with star-ing an e-mail or apply Labels to e-mails, then I would really want offline version. Otherwise Tiger Mail or Thunderbird are sufficient. Somebody pointed out about mobile devices too. No need of an offline version. Again, Google would have thought about all this (if the news is true). I will give it a try.
See, I was thinking, if there was only a well-supported, documented way for mail clients to sync with mail servers so that changes were reflected. And it might even work offline! Wow, that would be so great.
And then I realized that Google should just support IMAP.
An offline Gmail client would be real cool.
Excellent - this was the missing link for Gmail. Also very correct for you to note that Google’s free stuff is now very problematic for MS Office. This trend of free vs expensive does not bode well for MS future profits.
Let’s seeee, hmmmmm….
offline … email ….
offline … email …
dosen’t seem to make sense.
…. Well it is from google.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
AN offline client would be even sweeter.
Google isn’t hip anymore, just very few people have realized it yet. Also, they make mostly crappy products that all look the same. Ask.com’s search is just as good, and has a better interface and results page. Google is yesterday’s news.
Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/) is a great and free open source email client you can use with Gmail… some great plugins too, like encryption. Very easy to setup and use. Best of both world (free gmail and free cleint with no ads and free online backup). -chrisco
@akatsuki: yeah, but IMAP doesn’t let GMail target you with ads. Once again, the proper solution is bashed to bits against the rocks of potential revenue.
more faster than ajax? then i’ll wait for it.
I wonder if it will somehow display ads when you use it…
I want to see an air version of gmail…
I love thunderbird but it takes to long to load if I just quickly want to check if I got that important email.
This is awesome! If it had calendar support to, we’d be so set! I can’t wait for this!
Google is playing dangerous by leaping over Microsoft’s territory. Is still remember what happen to netscape.
Since any POP client works with Gmail (one of its major advantages), why bother?
Some of you aren’t getting it. “Apple Mail can already check my Gmail account”… Think of this as just another additional feature they are adding to the existing gmail, not a separate product. In addition to using it the way you currently do, if you lose your connection, you can still compose, queue new messages, and view existing messages. These would be great new features which mitigate some of the current deficiencies in existing web-based applications, and you you can use it from ANY computer, not just the one that has your applications installed.
Google Gears is not only to access Web apps offline, it is also about speeding up online Web apps.
You think Gmail is fast? Well it does take more than a second to load Gmail, sometimes if your Internet connection to Gmails servers has a hickup, it may be more than two seconds.
Now with Google Gears, loading Gmail will be instantaneous while new mails will load onto the list quicker.
Basically the whole Gmail AJAX application will stay on your computer, and only new messages will be downloaded from Googles server. You can write messages offline and they are synched upon a connection to the Internet is detected.
Actually, loading Gmail sometimes takes 5-6 seconds. So with Google Gears enabled, I expect loading times for launching Gmail will be instant.
Lots of advantages so waiting to appear publicly online.
Finally, what took them so long?
If Google docs provided header/footer support and more closely matched the features found in Zoho’s word processor on top of gears… this would be useful.
Google ain’t Microsoft and Microsoft ain’t Google so stick to what you are best at you should see Windows Live Mail (desktop) and you will forget about this **** gears based offline things even if they are not based on google gears
@Ehsan,
Thankfully the world is more diverse than the Windows Desktop Evironment. The Windows Live Mail software is not available for Linux.
wow! its veery good cool news.
this is really good news. bad news for other offline mail clients.