Chromebooks are sometimes bought on their tight integration with the cloud: They’re basically home windows to the net and never a lot else. That comes with quite a lot of advantages, like by no means having to fret about dropping an unsaved doc, however it additionally means Chromebooks are much less helpful than Home windows or macOS laptops when you do not have an web connection.
Nevertheless, it is not true that Chromebooks are full bricks whereas they’re offline. With advances in net app and browser expertise, now you can get quite a bit executed on a Chromebook with out an web connection, with all of your work resyncing when Wi-Fi is accessible once more.
Clearly, you may’t ship an electronic mail or stream a video whilst you’re disconnected from the net—however you may work on paperwork and emails in an offline mode, in addition to cache content material to look at and hearken to whilst you’re offline, as I will clarify right here.
Utilizing Gmail Offline
Maybe unsurprisingly, contemplating it develops ChromeOS, Google has been on the forefront of creating net apps work offline for the good thing about Chromebook customers. Gmail is among the big-name apps that works offline, up to a degree—you will not be capable to ship or obtain emails with out an web connection, however you may nonetheless work on them.
From the primary Gmail interface on the net, click on the gear icon (high proper), then See all settings. Open the Offline tab, examine the Allow offline mail setting, and a variety of new choices pop up. Chief amongst them is the drop-down menu that allows you to select how a lot electronic mail to sync to your Chromebook: 7, 30, or 90 days’ value. The next worth offers you extra messages to work with, however takes up extra space for storing. You may see how a lot house Gmail is at present utilizing on the identical display.
On the identical web page, you should select what occurs in the event you log off of your Google account within the ChromeOS browser. You possibly can both maintain the synced information in place (handy in the event you signal again in, however doubtlessly dangerous from a safety standpoint), or delete it out of your Chromebook (a safer choice, however you’ll need to resync all of the messages once more in the event you signal again into Google).
Click on Save Modifications, and also you’re executed. If you’re offline, you are capable of search by and skim the emails you’ve got cached, in addition to compose new emails and save them as drafts. Completed emails might be despatched too, with out truly being despatched; they will be saved in a newly created Outbox folder, and dispatched as quickly as net entry is restored.
Utilizing Google Drive Offline
You should use Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides whereas offline, in addition to sure facets of the broader Google Drive app—however as with Gmail, you should do some preparation prematurely. From Google Drive on the net, click on the gear icon (high proper), then choose Settings.
