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Mailplane

Brings Gmail to your Mac desktop

Enable “Offline Gmail”

Mailplane 2.1: Read, compose and answer your email offline. Learn how to setup the Offline Gmail lab feature.

Important: Requires Mailplane 2.1

"Offline Gmail" is a Gmail lab feature provided by Google. The lab feature needs "Google Gears", a browser extension, to operate.

Google Gears for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Currently there is no official Google Gears for Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) version from Google. If you wish to use "Offline Gmail", you may want to try the unsupported workaround.

Prerequisites

Download and install Google Gears for Safari. Important: Google Gears for Firefox doesn't work with Mailplane, you need the Safari version. Visit the Google Gears page in Safari to download the software under Mac OS X Leopard or Tiger. Snow Leopard users can get a compatible version here.

Tip: In case the Gears installer complains about incompatible Safari version (3.2.1 and you have 4.0.4, for instance): Please move Safari to the /Applications folder and restart the Gears installer.

Restart both Mailplane and Safari after the Google Gears installation.

Enable Google Gears in Mailplane

Inside Mailplane Open Preferences > Advanced and make sure the "Enable Google Gears for Offline Gmail" setting is checked.

Setup

Click Gmail > Settings
Select the "Offline" tab
Enable "Offline Gmail"
Click Save Changes to apply the changes

Click the "Offline" link to open the setup wizard
Click "Next" to start the installation process

Click "No", you don't need a shortcut to open Gmail.

Wait until the download has finished...

Customize

Click "Settings"
Activate the "Offline" settings tab
Enable/Disable Offline for your Mac
Decide which folders need to be downloaded
Decide how attachments should be handled
In case of trouble: Visit the Offline Gmail troubleshooting page
Save changes

Offline Gmail stopped working?

Make sure you have the latest Google Gears version
First try Mailplane > Reset Gmail Session
If that doesn't help, consider to re-setup your offline database:
1. In Finder go to /Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Google
2. Move "Google Gears for Safari" to the Trash
3. Restart Mailplane and redo the installation above

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Comments

Posted by bison (11/20 at 08:37 AM)

I could not install Gears process.
The message is “Your browser is not currently supported.”

Mac OS X 10.6.2
Mac Pro 8core
MailPlane 2.1 (1237)

Posted by Ruben (11/23 at 08:20 AM)

Please download & install the Snow Leopard Google Gears version first: http://mailplaneapp.com/download/google_gears/
Next: Make sure Preferences > Advanced > Enable Google Gears is checked.
Hope this helps.

Posted by Ed (12/08 at 01:54 PM)

Is Gears still needed now it’s out of Labs?

Posted by Ruben (12/09 at 11:36 AM)

Hi Ed,
Yes, Google Gears is still required. In the long term Google Gears could get replaced by HTML 5, which is already included in WebKit/Mailplane:
http://mailplaneapp.com/blog/entry/offline_gmail_bye_bye_google_gears_hello_html5/

Ruben

Posted by Samuel Lavoie (12/12 at 04:56 AM)

Works like a charm!

Mailplane 2.1.1
Safari 4
Snow Leopard
thanks for the little fix!
:)

Posted by Jernej (01/30 at 12:40 PM)

Gmail for my domain (g apps) looks like does not support offline or I dont find it!

Posted by Ruben (02/05 at 02:04 PM)

There’s a “Enable Offline Gmail for my users” setting for “premium” Gmail users. You find in the Google Apps management console.
Ruben

Posted by matt (02/28 at 05:14 AM)

Do i have to upgrade my google apps email to “premium” to have google gears offline support ??

Posted by Ruben (03/02 at 11:19 AM)

Hi Matt,
There’s a global Google Apps preference for “Offline Gmail”:
“Enable Offline Gmail for my users”, which is turned off by default. Please go to the Google Apps Dashboard > Email Service settings to change it.
Ruben