You can now create Gmail, or browse your inbox, without a connection to the internet - but the new feature comes tacked with a warning.

In an upgrade announced on its Gmail house blog today, Google says its web mail service can now be used with Gears – the company’s technology for synchronising on and offline content.

Instructions on upgrading your Gmail settings to accommodate Gears are here (see also the one-minute video below).

Once you’re set-up, Gears downloads a copy of your Gmail inbox to your PC’s hard drive. Gmail defaults to this cached version if you’re offline or if you’re encountering a ropey connection - "Like when you're 'borrowing' your neighbour's wireless", as a Google engineer writes on the blog, with studied zaniness.

The new feature promises more seamless email than the traditional online/offline solution - using POP3 or IMAP to syn your webmail with a desktop program like Outlook (Microsoft's Windows Live Mail offers a degree of offline functionality too; the Yahoo-owned Zimbra has a lot, though, as CNet fails to mention in the link below, does charge for full service).

Still flakey
However, like everything to do with Gmail, and with Labs, the new offline feature is in beta and Google warns on its blog: "Offline Gmail is still an early experimental feature, so don't be surprised if you run into some kinks that haven't been completely ironed out yet."

As your correspondent writes, the kinks include Offline Gmail not actually showing up under Gmail's Labs tab yet.

A rep for Google tells NBR that Gmail Offline "is being rolled out progressively over the next few days, so there may be a slight delay in it appearing".