Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Offline access to Google Docs editors auto-enabled when signing into Chrome browser on the web

When working in a Chrome browser, people using the Google Docs editors with offline access enabled can work on files even when not connected to the internet. Files are synced so they can be viewed and edited offline, allowing for continued productivity regardless of one’s internet connection.

Setting up offline access manually can be cumbersome, so in a couple of weeks you’ll be able to just sign into Chrome on the web and visit Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides―and offline will be enabled automatically. This is already the default behavior on Chrome OS, so nothing will change there.

Google Apps admins can still centrally enable or disable offline access for their domain in the Admin console (see the Help Center for instructions depending on your version of Google Apps). Existing settings for domain-level offline access will not be altered by this launch.

Note that Google Apps users should not sign into a Chrome browser on public/non-work computers with their Google Apps accounts to avoid unintended file syncing.

Release track:
Both Rapid release and Scheduled release launch coming in two weeks (gradual rollout)

Update to initial post (Feb 25): This feature launch is currently on hold. More details coming soon.

For more information:
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

whatsnew.googleapps.com
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