Microsoft Teams is one of the most perpetual apps in Microsoft’s portfolio. The company is consistently improving the workplace collaboration and communication tool. In the latest major update for Teams, the company is finally bringing offline mode to chats.
As Microsoft furthers Teams as an all-round professional communication platform that combines Slack and Zoom into one, offline mode feels like an essential addition.
Users can now perform some functionality without needing the internet. For example, it is possible to compose messages, browser recent chats, and look at channels. Of course, any written messages will be updated to the recipient the next time Microsoft Teams has a connection.
Teams will automatically place any written messages in a queue. Microsoft has not said if there is a limit on the number of messages able to be stored offline. As such we presume there is not limit. However, the company says if a connection is not established in 24 hours, pre-composed messages will be deleted.
Preparing
As we reported in March, Microsoft has been working on bringing offline mode to Teams for some time. In fact, it has been one of the most requested features amongst users since Teams’ launch in 2018.
“Limited network connectivity is a reality for many of our users around the world. In March, we launched the ability to run the desktop client on Windows and macOS in environments with limited bandwidth or without a network connection. This was accomplished through caching of data and code, and we also adopted a local fetch approach over network requests which led to improved launch times of the desktop client. Now we’re working on allowing users to author messages even when offline and have them automatically sent when network connectivity is reestablished,” Microsoft says.
The company says offline mode is currently only available for the desktop version of Microsoft Teams.
