How to use Microsoft’s Outlook Web apps offline with Google Chrome

Checking and responding to email is an important function of modern PCs. Sure, Microsoft has an email app for Windows 10, and if you’re using a Macbook, you can log into Apple’s Mail app for quick access to email by default.But the web has changed the way many people work, and working from a tab in lieu of a fully featured desktop app is becoming more and more common.
Microsoft’s Office web app is pretty full featured for Outlook, incorporating much needed features like Clutter, Focused Inbox and a generally pleasant interface. What most don’t know, is that you can also use the Outlook web-app offline as well as online.
To pull this off, you’ll need to have Google Chrome or some other capable browser installed as Microsoft’s Edge doesn’t support offline web-apps at this time (tested on the Windows 10 Creators Update).

How to use Microsoft’s Outlook Offline

1. Open your supported web browser and navigate to Outlook.com or Outlook for Office 365.
2. In the main web interface, open the settings menu (indicated by the gear menu) at the upper left and navigate to “Offline settings”
3. Select “Turn on offline access”
4. It’ll now save some files to your computer, as you’ll need to be able to see your email when you’re offline.
5. Now, navigate to email options. Under General, open Offline Settings. You’ll now be able to customise which email folders are synced to your PC while you’re offline. It does sync your Inbox and Drafts folder automatically, but users who have advanced sync solutions setup might prefer to have more granular control over their emails.

Of course, you’ll need to have the Outlook web app open for a while in a separate tab so it can sync your emails to your PC, and you’ll also need to have made a bookmark or some other shortcut to the web-app as you’ll be unable to navigate to it via the address bar should you be offline. You’ll be able to triage messages, queue up emails and read your inbox offline between WiFi hotspots. It’s not exactly 1 to 1 to a dedicated email app, but it’s pretty close, and if you’re not a heavy email user it could be all you need..