One of the main advantages of using the full installed version of Outlook has been the ability to sort through and respond to emails while offline. Not so much of an issue these days with so much free WiFi and 4G connectivity from mobile devices but it’s still been an issue. Well no longer because you can use the web version of Outlook in offline mode!
If you didn’t know this well it’s a great feature and it may mean you no longer have to deploy the full Office applications to your PC’s.
1. Let’s take a look at how to enable Outlook offline mode.Log into Outlook from the Office 365 portal https://portal.office.com
2. Click on the cog settings symbol in the top right corner.
3. From the settings menu select ‘Offline Settings’ then tick the box to ‘Turn on offline access’ and press ‘OK’.
4. Press ‘Yes’ to confirm this is your private computer. Don’t ever enable offline access on a public computer because someone may access your emails without you knowing.
5. Click ‘Next’ and if the browser prompts you to add more storage accept the request to continue.
6 . To get to web mail while offline you will need to create a bookmark to the page in your browser. Press CTRL + D and create a bookmark.
Give your bookmark a suitable name and click ‘Done’ then ‘Next’.
7. Press ‘OK’ to confirm offline mode.
8 . By default the inbox and drafts folders are made offline. Here you can add a further five folders to be made available offline. Add any additional folders you require and press ‘OK’ to finish.
Leave the Outlook window open for a few minutes before going offline. The browser will download and store email within the selected folders which will occur in the background so give it several minutes to complete. There will be no visual indication of when this completes so the longer you leave the page open the better.
9. Now test the feature by disconnecting from your internet connection.
10. You can see here we are offline but still have access to the app. Also if you close the browser you can still use Outlook web app by using the bookmark created earlier. You can read emails and create new ones. When you next go online the emails will automatically send
Conclusion
Outlook web app offline mode is another step closer to not needing the full Office package installed to your laptop. The web version of the Office apps are getting better and better as time goes on 🙂
