Offline Gmail is being rolled out with Google, allowing people to access their web mail even when they are not connected.

Available in the 'next couple of days' to all those who use Gmail in US or UK English, Offline Gmail uses Google's Gears to download a cache of mail which is synchronised.

Offline mode

When there is no connection Gmail switched to offline mode and uses the local data rather than looking online. And, for those people on flaky connections (on a train for instance) there is also a hybrid solution.

"…if you're on an unreliable or slow connection (like when you're "borrowing" your neighbor's wireless), you can choose to use "flaky connection mode," which is somewhere in between: it uses the local cache as if you were disconnected, but still synchronises your mail with the server in the background, explains the Google Gmail team blog.

"Our goal is to provide nearly the same browser-based Gmail experience whether you're using the data cached on your computer or talking directly to the server."

Experimental feature

A seamless/offline online experience will certainly be welcome, with Gmail simply waiting until it has a connection to send the mails that you write while offline.

"Offline Gmail is still an early experimental feature, so don't be surprised if you run into some kinks that haven't been completely ironed out yet," adds the blog post.

"We've been using offline Gmail internally at Google for quite a while…Now we're ready to have a larger set of people try it out, so we're making it available in Gmail Labs for those of you who want to test out Gmail's latest and greatest."

For those who want to try out the feature (when available, and it isn't for anyone in the TechRadar offices as yet), go to Labs in Settings, select Enable next to Offline Gmail and Save Changes.