Outlook in Offline Mode

Do you use the Outlook desktop application? If so, you can also work with your email program offline. We’ll explain the basics as well as how you can activate and deactivate Outlook’s offline mode.

Outlook’s offline mode enables you to conveniently use your email program even without access to the internet. If your internet connection drops –when working on your laptop on an airplane, for example – Outlook will show you an error message in standard mode. You can stop these kinds of messages by switching Outlook to offline mode.

To end Outlook’s offline mode, simply click on the “Work Offline” button again in the “Send / Receive” tab.

If Outlook is unable to connect to the email server even though you’ve ended the offline mode, Outlook will display the “Disconnected” status in the footer.

If Outlook displays the status “Disconnected”, your email program is unable to connect to the online email server.

Take the steps below to identify the cause of the error:

1. First, check whether your computer is connected to the internet – for example, by attempting to access a web page in your browser.
2. If you’ve determined that your internet connection is working properly, you should then check whether you can send and receive emails in Outlook.
3. If Outlook displays the status “Disconnected” even though you’re able to send and receive emails without any issues, your computer might need an update. Update your operating system in this case.
4. However, if your software is already up to date, there is probably an issue with your account settings.

If you’ve identified the Outlook account settings as the cause of the problem, you can try to resolve it by removing the Outlook account and then adding the Outlook account again.