As we are well aware that Microsoft Outlook is a very helpful application that allows us to send and receive emails instantly. However, at times, it may start to give you a tough time by showing offline whenever you try to use it for the emailing purpose. This not only frustrates the user but also makes him think about what should be his next move to get rid of this issue. Most of the time, this issue can be easily fixed by upgrading your application via office.com/setup. But, sometimes, this is not enough and you have to fix it using other troubleshooting ways.
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Missing “Work Offline” Button – How to Fix it
It may happen that your Outlook window is missing the switch button to work offline – online. Usually, this button is missing because your email account is not using a mail server compatible with Microsoft Exchange.
However, the Work Offline button might be missing from Outlook even if you are using an email account capable of working offline. If that is the case, here is how to fix the Work Offline button:
From your main Outlook window, go to the File -> Info Menu -> Account Settings -> Account Name and Sync Settings:
fix-Outlook-offline
From the Account Name and Sync Settings window, click on the More Settings button:
Outlook-working-offline-button
On the popup window, click on the Advanced tab and mark the checkboxes “Use Cached Exchange Mode” and “Download shared folders”:
Outlook-sync-online
Important: there is a small bug on the above checkboxes! Even if you previously unchecked the option “Use Cached Exchange Mode”, Outlook will still show it as being checked! So Outlook might show that this option is checked, but in fact it isn’t To make sure you actually enable the cached Exchange mode, you need to uncheck, then re-recheck the cached Exchange mode, then click on the OK button until you exit the options windows, then restart Outlook. The Work Offline button should now be visible on your Outlook Send / Receive tab.
I hope these steps will be helpful!
Mark Wilson