About working offline

Working offline gives you access to your information regardless of whether you are connected to your e-mail server. For example, laptop users can work with their e-mail, even when not connected to the e-mail server.

The following are ways to work offline:

Remote Mail

If you only need to download messages from your Exchange Server Inbox, use the Remote Mail feature. Remote Mail makes it possible for you to screen out the messages you don't want to download by first downloading the message headers and then deciding which ones you want to download the complete messages for. This way you can screen out messages that are less urgent, which is especially useful when you're away from the office and your connection speed or cost is a concern.

Offline folders

Unlike with Remote Mail, with offline folders you're not restricted to working with only the Inbox. Offline folders make it possible to take a folder from a server location, work with the contents of the folder when you are not connected to the network, and then update the folder and its corresponding server folder to make the contents of both identical. This process is called synchronizing folders.

You can add, delete, and modify the contents of an offline folder exactly as you can with a folder on a server. For example, you can change and move items in your offline Inbox, send messages that are placed in your offline Outbox, and read your offline public folders. Meanwhile, you will receive new messages in your Inbox on the server, and other users might add, delete, and change items in public folders. But you will not be aware of these changes on the server until you synchronize.

Offline folders are stored in the Offline Folder (.ost) file. This file is located on your computer hard disk and is available even when the network is down. The .ost file can be compacted to save space on your computer.