Zoho Mail Launches with Offline Support
Raju Vegesna October 10, 2008 06: 09 am
Over the past three years, we launched several new applications in Zoho, but one particular application has been in the background silently making progress during its private-beta stage - Zoho Mail.
Today, Zoho Mail is stepping out of private-beta. This is an important milestone for Zoho as Zoho Mail plays a pivotal role in our suite’s evolution. There is lot to talk about, so let us drill down into details.
Features

Instead of talking about all the features in Zoho Mail, I’ll share the approach we have taken in Zoho Mail and let you explore all the features.
Zoho Mail supports folders (including hierarchical folders) - the ones you are used to. But then, we also see the value of having Labels in your mail client. So we added labels support too. We don’t want to decide what you should use. We want to give you the choice. So we added support for both Folders and Labels.
Along the same lines, we noticed that some users prefer seeing a list of their emails serially (Ex: the Outlook style) and some users prefer viewing the emails as conversations (Ex: Gmail style). Again, we don’t want to decide what you have to use. So we support both. In conversations, responses are listed hierarchically so that you can look at a conversation and visually see who responded to whom.
Threaded/Conversational View in Zoho Mail
These are couple of examples on the approach we used for Zoho Mail. We do support all the common features you’d expect from an email system. I have included the list of supported features in this document.
Zoho Mail also has Zoho Chat Integrated. We understand that you spend most of the time in your email app. It is important to have Chat integrated right into it. You’ll find the same version of Zoho Chat integrated with other applications like Zoho Business, Zoho Docs etc.
You can chat while you are in Zoho Mail
Apart from Zoho Chat integration, we also integrate our productivity suite. You can now open your attachments (like documents, spreadsheets) with appropriate Zoho Applications.
Offline Support
Zoho Mail also supports Offline mode. This means you can access your email when not connected to the internet. Like Zoho Writer, this functionality is built using Google Gears.
To use Zoho Mail in offline mode, you’ll notice the ‘Setup Offline’ link on the top. You’ll need Google Gears installed on your browser (IE & Firefox are supported currently) to use offline support. Once you permit access, your mails will be accessible offline. You can choose to download images & attachments as well in the offline mode.

Zoho Mail automatically detects your connectivity and switches to online/offline modes seamlessly. While offline, you can view your emails as you would normally.
We had a chat with Brad Neuberg from Google Gears team regarding offline support.
Mobile Support
Zoho Mail is also available on iPhone. If you login to zoho.com from your iPhone, you’ll find the mobile version of Zoho Mail optimized for the iPhone. We do plan to support other mobile devices soon.
If you have access to Zoho Business, Zoho Mail is also integrated into Zoho Business.

Zoho Mail is integrated with Zoho Business
Over the next few weeks we will be talking in detail about some of the key features in Zoho Mail. Meanwhile, please do give Zoho Mail a spin and let us know your feedback.
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