Working Offline

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups includes advanced features to help you manage your messaging needs when you are not connected to the Internet. You can download mail and news messages before going offline for later reading, and you can defer sending mail messages and newsgroup posts until you get back online. All of these features are explained in this document.

Setting Up &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups to Work Offline

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups' offline feature lets you download your mail and read it offline (while disconnected from the Internet). If you use a dial-up (modem) connection to access your mail and you want to reduce the time you are connected, or, if you need to temporarily disconnect from your company's network while traveling or switching locations, you can download your mail so that you can read it offline. The offline feature can automatically download incoming messages and then later send all your outgoing messages when you reconnect.

Note that for POP accounts your mail is already downloaded by default, so most of these offline features aren't relevant for POP accounts.

If you occasionally want to work offline, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups lets you easily:

• Download your Inbox for offline use.
• Download an individual folder for offline use.
• Download only selected or flagged messages for offline use.
• Download directory entries in your address book for offline use.

If you frequently work offline, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups also lets you:

• Set up one or more of your accounts for offline use.
• Set offline and disk space preferences for each account.
• Select the folders and newsgroups that you want to view offline.

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Downloading All Messages for Offline Use

You can tell &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups to automatically download your messages for offline use. Later, when you go back online, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically synchronizes your messages with the server.

Note that the Inbox for POP accounts is downloaded by default, so this section does not apply for POP accounts.

To automatically download your messages for offline use, begin from the Mail window:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings. You see the Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings dialog box.
2. In the left side of the dialog box, under the name of the account you want to use offline, select Synchronization & Storage. (This category is not available for POP accounts.)
3. Check the box labeled Keep messages for this account on this computer.
4. Click OK.
5. Click the Online/Offline indicator in the lower right corner of the Mail window (to the left of the Cookie icon) to go offline. You will be asked to download messages for them to be available while offline. Click on Download to proceed.

Note: This setting also applies to any new folders created. While the per-account setting can be overridden for an individual folder, those per-folder settings are removed when the Keep messages box is toggled.

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically downloads all messages in your Inbox so you can read and respond to them while working offline. After disconnecting, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups remains open so you can continue to work with your messages.

To reconnect to the Internet so you can work online:

• Click the Online/Offline indicator in the lower right corner of the Mail window (to the left of the Cookie icon) to go back online.

When you go back online, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically synchronizes your Inbox messages with the server, by replicating any changes you made while working offline.

Tip: &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups saves any messages that you send while working offline in the Unsent Messages folder under Local Folders. To have &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically send your unsent messages when you reconnect, use the Preferences command on the &brandShortName; Edit menu to change the offline preferences for all your accounts.

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Downloading an Individual Folder for Offline Use

Note that POP accounts don't allow you to manage folders on the POP server, so this section does not apply to POP accounts.

To download a specific folder for offline use, begin from the Mail window:

1. In the left side of the Mail window, select the folder that you want to download for offline use.
2. Open the Edit menu, and choose Folder Properties. You see the Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Synchronization tab.
4. Check Select this folder for offline use.
5. Click Download Now if you want to immediately begin downloading the folder's messages. Alternatively, you can continue working, and when you are ready to go offline, proceed to the next step.
6. Click the Online/Offline indicator in the lower right corner of the Mail window to go offline.
7. In the Work Offline dialog box, click Download.

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically downloads all messages in the selected folder so you can read and respond to them while working offline. After disconnecting, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups remains open so you can continue to work with your messages.

Note: Message headers that have been downloaded for reading offline display a darker gray envelope or newsgroup icon.

To reconnect to the Internet so you can work online:

• Click the Online/Offline indicator in the lower right corner of the Mail window (to the left of the Cookie icon) to go back online.

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically synchronizes the offline folders with the server, by replicating any changes you made while working offline.

Tip: &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups saves any messages that you sent while working offline in the Unsent Messages folder under Local Folders. When you reconnect, choose Send Unsent Messages from the File menu to send all your saved messages at once. To have &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically send your unsent messages when you reconnect, use the Preferences command on the &brandShortName; Edit menu to change your offline preferences.

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Downloading Selected or Flagged Messages for Offline Use

Note that messages are downloaded by default for POP accounts. However, if you have enabled the Fetch headers only setting in the POP account settings, then only the headers will be downloaded, and you will need to use the commands in this section to download the complete messages.

To download selected messages for offline use, begin from the Mail window:

1. Select a Mail or Newsgroup folder to display its messages.
2. Select the messages you want to download, as follows:
   • To select a group of adjacent messages, click the first message, and then Shift-click to select the last message in the group.
   • To select messages anywhere in the message list, hold down the CmdCtrl key and click each message.
3. Open the File menu, choose Offline, and then choose Get Selected Messages from the submenu. &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups downloads the selected messages.

To download flagged messages for offline use, begin from the Mail window:

1. Select a Mail or Newsgroup folder to display its messages.
2. Click in the flag column of each message you want to download. A flag appears where you clicked to indicate that the message has been marked. If the flag column is not visible, click the Show/Hide Columns icon and select Flag from the list.
3. Open the File menu, choose Offline, and then choose Get Flagged Messages. &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups downloads the flagged messages.

Once downloading is complete, click the Online/Offline indicator in the lower right corner of the Mail window (to the left of the Cookie icon) to go offline. After you disconnect, &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups remains open so you can continue to work with your messages.

Note that the Get Selected Messages and Get Flagged Messages menu items are also available in the pop-up thread context menu, for faster access.

Note: Message headers that have been downloaded for reading offline display a darker gray envelope or newsgroup icon.

To reconnect to the Internet so you can work online:

• Click the Online/Offline indicator in the lower right corner of the Mail window to go online.

Tip: &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups saves any messages that you sent while working offline in the Unsent Messages folder under Local Folders. When you reconnect, choose Send Unsent Messages from the File menu to send all your saved messages at once. To have &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups automatically send your unsent messages when you reconnect, use the Preferences command on the &brandShortName; Edit menu to change your offline preferences.

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Downloading Directory Entries for Offline Use

You can download (replicate) the entries in a directory server to your computer so that they are available when you work offline. Once you've downloaded directory entries, you can use the same procedure to update your local copy of the entries with the latest entries on the directory server.

To download or update an address book LDAP directory for offline use:

1. Make sure you're online.
2. Open the Window menu, and choose Address Book.
3. In the Address Book window, select the directory that you want to download (replicate).
4. Click Properties in the Address Book toolbar. The Directory Server Properties dialog box appears.
5. Click the Offline tab.
6. Click Download Now to start copying the entries to your computer.
7. If prompted, enter your network user name and password, and click OK to start the download.

   Depending on the number of directory entries, the download process may take a while, so please be patient.

After the download finishes, you can work offline and search the directory or use it for address autocompletion when composing messages. After you've been using your local copy of the directory for a while, you may wish to update it to get the latest entries from the directory server. To update your local copy, use the procedure described above.

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Setting Up Your Accounts for Working Offline

To set up one or more accounts for working offline, you use the Offline and Disk Space preferences in the Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings dialog box. Once set, you don't need to change these preferences each time you want to work offline. The offline and disk space preferences you can set for an account depend on the type of account (IMAP, POP, or Newsgroup).

Here's a summary of the steps you will follow to set up your accounts for offline use:

1. For each account that you want to work with while offline, use the Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings dialog box to set the Synchronization & Storage preferences for that account. You must select the items (folders and newsgroups) that you want to download for offline use. See Selecting Items for Offline Viewing for more information.

   Once set, you don't need to change these settings. See the sections below for information on setting offline and disk space preferences for IMAP, POP, Blogs, and Newsgroup accounts.

   Tip: To set the Synchronization & Storage preferences for the current account, open the File menu, choose Offline, and then choose Offline Settings.

2. Open the File menu, choose Offline, and then choose Download/Sync Now from the submenu.
3. Select the type of messages (mail or newsgroup or both) that you want to download.

   Important: You must select at least one category (mail messages or newsgroup messages) in order for the download to work.

4. Select Work offline once download and/or sync is complete.
5. Click OK to download the selected items and then go offline. See Downloading and Synchronizing Your Messages for more information.

For subsequent offline sessions, you can skip step 1.

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Selecting Items for Offline Viewing

Before you can read mail and newsgroup messages while offline, you must first select them for downloading. You can set up an entire account for offline use. You can also choose which folders and newsgroups that you want to use offline.

Note: Keep in mind that selecting more items may increase download time and disk space used.

To select accounts, folders, and newsgroups for offline viewing, begin from the Mail window:

1. Open the Edit menu, choose Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings. You see the Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings dialog box.
2. Choose the Synchronization & Storage category for the account you want to change.
3. Click Advanced to see your IMAP folders, or Select newsgroups for offline use for your subscribed newsgroups.

   Note: You see only the newsgroups and folders that you've already subscribed to. POP accounts and local mail folders don't appear in the list.

4. Select the items (folders, newsgroups) that you want to make available for offline use.
5. Click OK.

Once set, you don't need to change these settings each time you want to go offline. However, if you do want to change them, you can easily do so before going offline, since the same Select button is available when using the Download and Sync command.

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Downloading and Synchronizing Your Messages

If you have already selected mail folders and newsgroups for offline use, you are now ready to download and synchronize them. If you haven't yet selected items to download, you can choose them before you go offline.

If you are not already viewing the Download/Sync Now dialog box, follow these steps:

To download and synchronize your messages, begin from the Mail window:

1. Open the File menu, choose Offline, and then choose Download/Sync Now.
2. Select the categories (mail messages or newsgroup messages) that you want to download.

   Important: You must select at least one category (Mail messages, Newsgroup messages) in order for the download to work. If the checkboxes are disabled, it means that you haven't yet selected items to download. Use the Select button to select items to download.

3. To send messages in your Unsent Messages folder before going offline, check Send Unsent Messages.
4. To go offline immediately after &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups finishes downloading, select Work offline once download and/or sync is complete.
5. To set or change the items to download, click Select. See Selecting Items for Offline Viewing for more information. You can skip this step if you've already selected items for download.
6. Click OK. &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups begins downloading the selected items.

If you chose to work offline once the download completes, then &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups immediately switches to offline mode. Otherwise, when you are ready to go offline, click the Online/Offline indicator in the lower right corner of the Mail window to go offline.

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Working Offline and Reconnecting Later

To work offline and reconnect later, begin from the Mail window.

When you are ready to work offline:

1. Click the online/offline indicator in the lower-right corner of the Mail window. Mail & Newsgroups prompts you to download messages, if you want, before going offline.
2. Click Download to download messages before going offline. If you want to work offline without downloading messages, click Don't Download.

Note: Message headers that have been downloaded for reading offline display a darker gray envelope or newsgroup icon.

Tip: To set &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups' download behavior when going offline, open the &brandShortName; Edit menu, choose Preferences, and then under the Mail & Newsgroups category, select Network & Storage (if no subcategories are visible, double-click Mail & Newsgroups to expand the list). You can choose to have &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups prompt you to download messages when going offline, to automatically download messages, or to not download any messages.

To reconnect and synchronize your messages:

1. Click the online/offline indicator in the lower-right corner of any &brandShortName; window.
2. Open the File menu, choose Offline, and then choose Download/Sync Now.

&brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups synchronizes your messages with the server by replicating any changes you made while working offline.

Tip: To set &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups' behavior when going online, open the &brandShortName; Edit menu, choose Preferences, and then choose the Synchronization & Storage category. You can choose to have &brandShortName; Mail & Newsgroups prompt you to send unsent messages, to automatically send unsent messages, or to not send unsent messages.

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