Did you know Gmail can work offline on your PC? Using Google’s free email service on a slow or even non-existent Internet connection is possible. It can also come in handy when you’re headed somewhere remote.

Two important things to note: the offline Gmail feature needs to be enabled first, and you can only use the feature on the Google Chrome browser. You can turn on the offline Gmail mode in just a few steps.

How to turn on Gmail offline mode

Step 1: Add Gmail (https://mail.google.com) to your bookmark in Chrome, then visit it.

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Step 2: Click the Settings button in the upper-right corner of the page, then click See All Settings.

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Step 3: Switch to the Offline tab.

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Step 4: Tick the Enable Offline Mail, choose your preferred settings, then click Save Changes.

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Offline mode can be configured so you can select up to how many days’ worth of messages is saved for offline use, with or without attachments.

You can also opt to keep your offline Gmail data on your computer even when you sign out of your Google account or change your password. Your Gmail data will only be deleted when you turn off offline mode, as described in the next section.

Alternatively, you can opt to remove your offline data from your computer after you sign out of your Google account. But Gmail will need to resync your offline data once more when you log back in while offline mode remains enabled. Gmail may be less responsive the more data it needs to resync.

How to switch off Gmail offline mode

First, you need to remove all your offline data from Google Chrome.

Step 1: Launch Google Chrome.

Step 2: Click the kebab menu at the top right, then click Settings.

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Step 3: Click Privacy and Security on the left pane.

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Step 4: Click Cookies and Other Site Data under Privacy and Security

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Step 5: Click See All Cookies and Site Data.

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Step 6: Click Remove All.

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Are you lost? Enter this shortcut in the browser’s address bar: chrome://settings/siteData

Next, you need to turn the Gmail offline mode off. Simply perform the steps in the previous section, but untick the Enable Offline Mail checkbox instead.

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