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FR: Offline mode


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Katherine_Duh wrote:

Hi, everyone! First off, we hear you loud and clear on the desire for offline mode. We’ve spent much time internally exploring the possibility of offline mode (and even building some prototypes), but it’s a fundamentally difficult feature to build. Since Airtable is a collaborative product, an ideal offline solution would need to gracefully handle merge conflicts, and do so in the context of Airtable’s relational data structure and rich field types. For comparison, Google Docs uses an approach termed operational transforms, but this only works on simpler data structures (i.e. a Google word document is represented as a single long string of text, and a spreadsheet is represented as a shapeless 2-dimensional array of cells).

As we continue to explore the tradeoffs for various implementations of offline mode, it would be very useful for our team to get some detailed feedback from dedicated Airtable users like yourselves about why and how you would like offline to be designed. Just a sampling of potential things to think about:

  • How would you want to use Airtable offline? Tell us your story. Are you a world traveler, wanting to find a way to look at your elaborately designed base of sightseeing spots without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges? Are you a construction baron, sending out remote workers to to survey your newly acquired plots of land? Are you a deep sea diver on a solo expedition in the Marianas Trench, logging undiscovered species of hagfish on the ocean floor? Do you just have really terrible WiFi in the boiler room under the stairs, where the boss moved your office?
  • Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? (Resolving merge conflicts when someone is the sole collaborator on a database is far simpler than doing so when you have multiple collaborators, some of whom are online and some of whom are offline, and all of whom are editing different things.)
  • How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Do you just need a read-only version of the contents of your bases that you can access while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to edit the contents of records while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to change the database schemata while offline? (In order, these are: comparatively simple to implement; difficult to implement; incredibly difficult to implement.)
  • For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? For a few minutes, as you drive through a tunnel? (Please don’t Airtable and drive.) For a few hours, as you sit in an airport terminal and refuse to pay for overpriced WiFi? For a few weeks, as you trek through the farthest reaches of frigid Nunavut?
  • How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? One potential way of alleviating the issues that arise with resolving merge conflicts is to force end users to make decisions on how to solve specific conflicts. This, however, comes with its own set of potential problems (e.g. being stalled by having to resolve a merge conflict when all you want to do is work, your co-workers getting mad that you merged over their data without their permission).
  • Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? Anecdotally, it seems like many of the people who want offline mode want it for mobile, but it would be good for us to get some clarification on that front.

Hi,

I was involved in building an iPad Inspection app where support for offline was mandatory. (In fact, lack of offline capability was a driving motivation to create the app in the first place since the vendor software didn’t work adequately offline.)

Here are a few reasons to support offline.

  • Work is done in a variety of places (including remote locations, or “dead zones” in urban areas or buildings.)
  • Access to information and transaction processing must be provided even if there is a data disruption.

In my opinion, an enterprise would only choose an online-only platform for applications that were handled in a primary office (where there could be redundant data services), or for relatively unimportant applications where a service interruption could be tolerated. For mobile devices, this implies that AirTable is only suited for relatively unimportant applications - and the market will likely create a alternative suitable for important applications.

In our solution approach, we had a few strategies (that evolved over time) to support offline mode. This included:

  • A local working data subset was delivered to each user as part of a “Sync” transaction. The database had a specific set of Offline metadata instructing the sync function which tables and fields needed to be delivered to mobile devices.
  • Configurations were versioned. Breaking configurations had to be applied with coordination with all users. (These were very rare once the system was in full production.)
  • Configuration (schema) changes could only be done using online tools. Offline was limited to transaction processing and data viewing.
  • Sync metadata was based on tables & forms used in mobile and offline-enabled forms.
  • Offline data validation was very important. This could be done either by custom mobile validation code (brute force) or by including data validation scripts in coordination with form definitions.
  • Offline data use was a mix of searches of read only data (addresses, contact details, history), alterations to in-progress transactions, and creating new transactions.
  • Individual transaction records could be edited until they were “finalized”. (Transactions generally lived a relatively short time between created and finalized states.)
  • Data in widely shared tables (such as client contact details) were either read only while offline, or offline changes were packaged as a change request to be applied as a distinct transaction by an online user.
  • Synchronization detected conflicts and created a “Conflict Resolution” task - which included “Apply” or “Abandon” change. Conflicts were generally caused by an individual doing a transaction using multiple apps at overlapping times. (Editing using the iPad app while also editing online using a browser.) This problem diminished as users became familiar with the system.
  • It was important to create new data collection transactions.
  • It was important to generate PDF documents that could be printed while offline. (PDF templates needed to work offline.
  • Its a bit tangential, but we baked workflow into the sequence of forms associated with a transaction. This became quite powerful because the app “became” the SOP for the task. Having the SOP / SWI integrated into the app eliminate a lot of needless work - and created a better experience for the workers.

There are several big / complex systems aimed at this type of need (low-code / no-code) - but their adoption cost is high and lockin is high. I think AirTable has an opportunity to grow up from the simple / user-driven side and become a credible enterprise app.

I’m taking the time to respond to this now because regrettably I can’t propose an AirTable solution to a client because AFAIK there is no offline support.

Regards,
Cameron


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  • Known Participant
  • July 6, 2019

I just started using Airtable this week and was loving the app but for some reason, completely neglected to check whether it’s accessible offline. This is a big issue and I’m quite stunned that nobody from the Airtable team has chimed in or provided any sort of update as to whether it’s even on the road map.

Has anyone here heard from the team on this issue?


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Dear Airtable Team,
offline access is a very important issue for me and many others. Can you please give us an update whether and when this is coming?

Regards,
Michael


  • New Participant
  • July 22, 2019
Katherine_Duh wrote:

Hi, everyone! First off, we hear you loud and clear on the desire for offline mode. We’ve spent much time internally exploring the possibility of offline mode (and even building some prototypes), but it’s a fundamentally difficult feature to build. Since Airtable is a collaborative product, an ideal offline solution would need to gracefully handle merge conflicts, and do so in the context of Airtable’s relational data structure and rich field types. For comparison, Google Docs uses an approach termed operational transforms, but this only works on simpler data structures (i.e. a Google word document is represented as a single long string of text, and a spreadsheet is represented as a shapeless 2-dimensional array of cells).

As we continue to explore the tradeoffs for various implementations of offline mode, it would be very useful for our team to get some detailed feedback from dedicated Airtable users like yourselves about why and how you would like offline to be designed. Just a sampling of potential things to think about:

  • How would you want to use Airtable offline? Tell us your story. Are you a world traveler, wanting to find a way to look at your elaborately designed base of sightseeing spots without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges? Are you a construction baron, sending out remote workers to to survey your newly acquired plots of land? Are you a deep sea diver on a solo expedition in the Marianas Trench, logging undiscovered species of hagfish on the ocean floor? Do you just have really terrible WiFi in the boiler room under the stairs, where the boss moved your office?
  • Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? (Resolving merge conflicts when someone is the sole collaborator on a database is far simpler than doing so when you have multiple collaborators, some of whom are online and some of whom are offline, and all of whom are editing different things.)
  • How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Do you just need a read-only version of the contents of your bases that you can access while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to edit the contents of records while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to change the database schemata while offline? (In order, these are: comparatively simple to implement; difficult to implement; incredibly difficult to implement.)
  • For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? For a few minutes, as you drive through a tunnel? (Please don’t Airtable and drive.) For a few hours, as you sit in an airport terminal and refuse to pay for overpriced WiFi? For a few weeks, as you trek through the farthest reaches of frigid Nunavut?
  • How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? One potential way of alleviating the issues that arise with resolving merge conflicts is to force end users to make decisions on how to solve specific conflicts. This, however, comes with its own set of potential problems (e.g. being stalled by having to resolve a merge conflict when all you want to do is work, your co-workers getting mad that you merged over their data without their permission).
  • Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? Anecdotally, it seems like many of the people who want offline mode want it for mobile, but it would be good for us to get some clarification on that front.

Was super hoping after that long scroll I would get better news…I’ve been very passionate about airtable, but if I am unable to use offline it makes me look to other options.

How would you want to use Airtable offline? Input date at field sites with no internet/cell service. Upload photos. I am a wildlife researcher in reserves in southern Utah.

Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? With field assistants. But if there is a master editor/single iPad that could be used we would do that.

For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? Probably offline for a few days with a data upload weekly.

How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Read only would be helpful, but ideally full editting.

How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? I’m fine with this.

Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? I actually would prefer desktop.


  • Participating Frequently
  • August 15, 2019
Katherine_Duh wrote:

Hi, everyone! First off, we hear you loud and clear on the desire for offline mode. We’ve spent much time internally exploring the possibility of offline mode (and even building some prototypes), but it’s a fundamentally difficult feature to build. Since Airtable is a collaborative product, an ideal offline solution would need to gracefully handle merge conflicts, and do so in the context of Airtable’s relational data structure and rich field types. For comparison, Google Docs uses an approach termed operational transforms, but this only works on simpler data structures (i.e. a Google word document is represented as a single long string of text, and a spreadsheet is represented as a shapeless 2-dimensional array of cells).

As we continue to explore the tradeoffs for various implementations of offline mode, it would be very useful for our team to get some detailed feedback from dedicated Airtable users like yourselves about why and how you would like offline to be designed. Just a sampling of potential things to think about:

  • How would you want to use Airtable offline? Tell us your story. Are you a world traveler, wanting to find a way to look at your elaborately designed base of sightseeing spots without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges? Are you a construction baron, sending out remote workers to to survey your newly acquired plots of land? Are you a deep sea diver on a solo expedition in the Marianas Trench, logging undiscovered species of hagfish on the ocean floor? Do you just have really terrible WiFi in the boiler room under the stairs, where the boss moved your office?
  • Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators? (Resolving merge conflicts when someone is the sole collaborator on a database is far simpler than doing so when you have multiple collaborators, some of whom are online and some of whom are offline, and all of whom are editing different things.)
  • How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline? Do you just need a read-only version of the contents of your bases that you can access while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to edit the contents of records while offline? Or do you need to have the ability to change the database schemata while offline? (In order, these are: comparatively simple to implement; difficult to implement; incredibly difficult to implement.)
  • For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline? For a few minutes, as you drive through a tunnel? (Please don’t Airtable and drive.) For a few hours, as you sit in an airport terminal and refuse to pay for overpriced WiFi? For a few weeks, as you trek through the farthest reaches of frigid Nunavut?
  • How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually? One potential way of alleviating the issues that arise with resolving merge conflicts is to force end users to make decisions on how to solve specific conflicts. This, however, comes with its own set of potential problems (e.g. being stalled by having to resolve a merge conflict when all you want to do is work, your co-workers getting mad that you merged over their data without their permission).
  • Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile? Anecdotally, it seems like many of the people who want offline mode want it for mobile, but it would be good for us to get some clarification on that front.

How would you want to use Airtable offline?
Not a ton, but it would be super valuable for the minutes or days I happen to not have service: from the basement of my office to a road trip through the mountains

Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
Currently alone, but I’ve been envisioning uses for collaboration where I currently use Google Sheets or nothing at all.

How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
Read-only would be way better than having no offline access. Ability to create/edit/delete records while offline would be a plus.

For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
See above: a couple minutes to a couple days.

How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
No problem – for me that would be much better than losing access to Airtable.

Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Primarily mobile, but I can see situations where desktop browser use would be great.


  • New Participant
  • August 28, 2019

Sad to see no progression on this feature.

A key part of the spreadsheets Airtable is replacing is the ability to work regardless of whether im online or not. Most commonly ill be at a creative meeting at a random location and not have WiFi, in the past i would just update sheets accordingly and once online the changes would sync to everyone shared, with Airtable this simply does not exist.


Leo_Flint wrote:

Sad to see no progression on this feature.

A key part of the spreadsheets Airtable is replacing is the ability to work regardless of whether im online or not. Most commonly ill be at a creative meeting at a random location and not have WiFi, in the past i would just update sheets accordingly and once online the changes would sync to everyone shared, with Airtable this simply does not exist.


Yes it is sad. I’m sure it’s not the easiest thing but at the same time many other apps have figured out how to solve the sync issue. Evernote, Wunderlist, Hitask, and several other cloud based system has been able to pull this off. Even Clickup is giving an attempt to increase the offline usability in their launch of Clickup 2.0.


Denise_Parry wrote:

How would you want to use Airtable offline?
I’m a Parish administrator at a large urban church. I’m using airtables as our main database and directory of Parishioners. For it to be usable for the Priest when she is traveling around to see people, she needs to be able to read and search records for phone number/address etc while offline. All of the editing and merge features would be great, but we could get by with just being able to view and search the last saved copy.

Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
I’m the sole editor but other people are able to view the bases or certain views in the bases and need to be able to view while offline.

How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
I need to be able to read and search the bases. Editing would be nice but isn’t mandatory for usability.

For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
Ideally being able to see the bases offline for up to a month without wifi would be great, I think all of the users connect to wifi daily or nearly daily so if it was only daily that would probably also work.

How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
It would be fine because I’m the only one editing most of the time.

Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile


We have a team that needs to do a lot of travel. Being able to work on Airtable tickets while flying with poor or no connectivity or add todo notes on the go between meetings in low connectivity areas would be hugely useful.

This feature would enable a whole new set of use cases for us.


  • New Participant
  • 3 replies
  • September 1, 2019

Offline mode please please please!


+1 for offline access

I travel a lot for work, at places where i don’t have or cannot organise an internet connection.

I would upgrade my account instantly if offline mode was an option.

The best,
D


  • New Participant
  • September 23, 2019

+1 for Offline. Sync is a complicated issue, although one that many organizations have solved. Practically speaking, I work several hours a day while mobile, and internet is spotty to nonexistent. Our team can’t move forward with airtables if its isn’t usable for 20% of the my work day.


  • Known Participant
  • 26 replies
  • September 24, 2019

A specific situation where this would be an amazing feature.

My team is in the field everyday doing surveys and we use Airtable to track the contacts who have taken our surveys, how many projects are currently open and also gather an inventory of the products they have.

It would be nice to be able to make the product database offline so we can go into a big metal building with no internet connection and still add the inventory into the specific contact’s record either in the app or via a form. In this situation, the inventory doesn’t change when it would be offline, just adding another contact to that specific product would change, so saving a version of the database on my phone would be no issue.

It would also be nice to pull up images from Airtable for specific projects to show my contacts the new product idea I am trying to explain but without internet I am forced to save it and then find it in my images and have multiple duplicates.

Hope this helps make a better product for the future.


  • New Participant
  • 4 replies
  • October 3, 2019

Is there any update on this? This query was opened in 2016.

A lack of ability to work offline is preventing my studio from fully committing to Airtable, its a fantastic product, but there are a variety of situations, most commonly someone being on a long haul flight or a brief concept meeting held somewhere without access to WiFi. The ability to work offline is invaluable, as others have suggested, a caveated offline mode where a user accepts that conflicts may require manual involvement to resolve would be completely acceptable.


  • New Participant
  • 4 replies
  • October 5, 2019
Howie wrote:

CEO of Airtable here. Thanks everyone for your feedback so far!

I’ll address joshua_soule’s question, which I interpret as/distill into “can offline read/write access be thought of in the same way as online collaboration, but with exaggerated latency.” The answer is: not entirely.

Some Airtable user actions, such as editing a cell or creating/deleting new rows, are performed immediately on the client’s local data representation (see related concepts of “optimistic UI updating,” “optimistic concurrency,” and “eventual consistency”). Thus, they could theoretically be performed offline. In fact, you can do so today by disconnecting your internet connection without closing the browser tab or the iOS/Android app, making changes, then reconnecting—in absence of any conflicting changes from other clients, your offline edits should seamlessly sync.

The problem is that if changes are made from multiple clients simultaneously—whether by a team collaborator, or yourself from multiple offline devices—these clients increasingly diverge in their local states. In other words, if the Airtable server is the “real world,” each client gets more and more carried away with their imagination and starts to construct their own alternate reality. (Actually, this problem would remain even if you took away the Airtable server and instead made the system peer to peer, at which point you would have to grapple with consensus determination, which becomes increasingly complicated as the data model becomes more sophisticated, i.e. an entire relational database instead of simple numerical values).

Some amount of (or more accurately, “some types of”) divergence can be cleanly merged together: for instance, if you and I edit completely different cell values without making any other changes. In these cases, it’s obvious that our intended changes are completely independent of each other and can be trivially resolved. (For some very simple data structures, you can even construct a highly limited “world” where changes can always be cleanly merged together, but this doesn’t work for more sophisticated applications).

However, this isn’t always true. In some cases, our respective intents come into conflict. Within these cases, it’s sometimes still easy for Airtable to arbitrate our dispute and make a decision on what the outcome should be—in the case of two people overwriting the same cell value, the last edit received by the server wins. Note that for many cell types, Airtable’s behavior is actually a bit more advanced than “last-edit-wins”. For instance, if a multi select cell contains options Albatross and Buzzard, and you remove option Albatross from the cell (thus locally believing the resultant state to be Buzzard) while I simultaneously add option Cockatoo to the multi select cell (thus locally believing the resultant state to be Albatross, Buzzard, Cockatoo), Airtable actually resolves the resultant state to Buzzard and Cockatoo so that both of our intents are preserved, rather than simply clobbering one of our changes with the other .

Sometimes, though, there’s no clear way (not just for Airtable, but on a theoretical level) to resolve the conflicting intents—if one user changes a column, and another simultaneously changes values in the old column, for instance, it’s unclear what the human-desirable outcome is. One of the users’ intents must prevail (at least partially) over the other’s. This is where having 2 seconds of online latency is different from 2 days of latency (i.e. offline mode). With 2 seconds of latency, the most work you’ll lose or need to manually re-perform is 2 seconds. With 2 days of latency, you could potentially lose up to 2 days of work, as your subsequent changes could depend on the first change, which will be rejected. In other words, offline mode prevents you as the user from getting near-realtime feedback that a change being rejected due to another client’s conflicting changes, and instead lets you spiral increasingly into an invalid world of local state which becomes growingly impossible to resolve with the other clients’ world(s).

As far as I know, there are no database systems that gracefully handle all of the above problems. (Airtable is the first end-user relational database that handles fully realtime collaboration). We do believe this is an important feature, but there are necessarily tradeoffs to be made in its design. Your detailed feedback will help guide us to design the right tradeoffs.


Thanks for this, I learned a lot. Question: would it be possible to make Airtable readable offline? I mainly need this: the ability to access information within the databse when I did not have the foresight to know what I would need to look for.

Thanks!


  • New Participant
  • November 3, 2019

A quick suggestion:

For me, even having a read-only version available offline would be a huge asset.

Thanks

Chris


Just to raise my hand and reiterate:
Offline Mode please!

I love the easy and intuitive user experience of AirTable with a lot of flexiblity.

But I travel a lot, especially flying with no or unreliable internet access.
Without offline mode AirTable is close to useless for me.
Harald


  • Participating Frequently
  • November 25, 2019

Agree with previous comments. Hard to continue to use the app for travelers who don’t have internet or reliable internet. Read only mode would be a good start.


  • New Participant
  • 1 reply
  • November 27, 2019

I would say that I am looking for purely desktop tool rather than offline mode. Some companies have policies to not put any data only at all, so I would like to continue using the desktop app you already have but no syncing to the cloud, so merging conflicts are not even an issue. Place all data on the client side. Not having data online while working with your amazing tool would be fundamental for my needs.


Hi everyone,
Seems like everyone is struggling with the offline non-ability of Airtable.
I’m very confused with the utility of most templates I’ve been looking for.
In my case I’m looking for a smart way to compile documents, pictures, etc as a location scouting tool.
That’s neat, some templates are available for those.
But what’s the point if I can’t even read the database while scouting in a remote location.
I’m not even talking about adding entries while on the go.

It might be a philosophical issue, and maybe Airtable just doesn’t fit my usage.
But it seems like the tool has been designed for most of problematics we encounter in Film preparation and I can assure you that most of departments in a film crew would love a tool like this.
For now it’s a dealbreaker as it is.
Such a bummer

Looking forward to seeing such a feature


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  • Inspiring
  • 63 replies
  • November 30, 2019

Offline mode read only would be a huge help.


I’m also raising my hand for offline mode. :raising_hand_man:

Windows Desktop and iOS + iPadOS user here.

Currently I’ve tried several different project management software but non of them really gave me enough freedom to create lists, tasks and whatever else. Airtable is easy to look at, overseeable, and highly effective in so many ways. While other software is narrow minded (even the big ones like Asana or Trello) Airtable allows you to set up your layouts the way you want.

The lack of offline readability is really a dealbreaker at the moment. I’m about to commit to a software and a plan but as a filmmaker who travels a lot it’s sometimes hard to come by any internet.

I’m no programming expert but I believe it must be possible to download specific packages or informations locally on your mobile device. I know you can download CSV’s in the desktop version but that doesn’t work for me since I’m mainly using my iPad with Airtable and every now and then I don’t have access to any internet.

If I know beforehand that I’m about to lose connectivity for a while in a specific area I could download a specific table I need to work or at least can have a look at in that time. I personally wouldn’t need the files attached to the tables or the ability to work on tables offline (to be later updated to the servers when gaining connectivity again). Simply the fact to be able to have a look into all the things I have prepared and put so much effort in before is actually a must have.

There must be a way to do this. Nothing is impossible. I don’t know how long I can wait for it (if it’s even planned) since I have a running business and on-going projects to manage.

Please Airtable-Team… You can do it!

P.S.: If you need help or someone for more tutorial videos or anything similar feel free to hit me up. Being a video-editor & animator I’d be glad if I can help out.


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+1 for an offline mode! I’m now “paying” for my AirTable subscription with credits, but would not spend actual money on it if there’s no offline mode.

I use AirTable on my Macbook Air + iPhone (and hoping to add an iMac to the mix soon), but would use the offline mode mostly on my Macbook.

  • How would you want to use Airtable offline?
    I live off-grid in Spain. Great internet 99% of the time - but on stormy days or when travelling it’d be great to at least be able to access existing tables. Plus one of my favourite working spots has a great view of mountains & alpacas - but no wifi.
    I also travel quite regularly and like to brainstorm & plan on airplanes - it’d be great to use AT then as well.
    Third - I like to spend time at my parents’ place - they don’t have wifi, and it’s a hassle to connect to my phone’s internet every time I want to work for a bit.

  • Do you use Airtable alone, or with collaborators?
    I would mostly want offline access to AirTable workspaces where I’m the sole collaborator. Or I’d be totally fine with not being able to add collaborators to AirTables that I saved offline.

  • How much do you need to be able to do in Airtable while offline?
    Ideally, all of it - but for my most basic needs (being able to continue working even when internet fails for a day), read-only would be awesome.

  • For how long do you need to be able to use Airtable offline?
    A couple of hours - when a storm is budging our internet antenna so much it won’t connect, when I’m on an aeroplane (mostly intra-Europe flights), when I’m working outside.

  • How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
    Very tolerant. As mentioned before, I wouldn’t mind to only have offline access when there’s no collaborators on the table.

  • Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
    Desktop. I don’t use AirTable on mobile much - and when I do, I usually have internet on my phone anyway. Although I could see myself using the mobile app more often on an aeroplane, instead of my macbook.


  • New Participant
  • 1 reply
  • January 25, 2020

A simple function for Offline Mode:

An option to select a Table as “Non-collaborative” or “ Single-Use”

This allows edits to be made offline and saved when network is re-established. The compromise is phone storage, although


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  • New Participant
  • 2 replies
  • February 1, 2020

Add +1 to the list for an offline mode for Airtable.

How would you want to use Airtable offline?

I am a marine biologist who spends a fair amount of time in remote locations with no/limited internet. It would be great to be able to use Airtable as a conformation tool for identifying certain similar species in the field, and also possibly as a data entry form.

Do you use Airtable alone?
I work with a small team of collaborators, but most of them will be in the field with me, so it wouldn’t be much of an issue.

How long offline?
Generally for 4-6 hours at a time.

How tolerant would you be of having to resolve merge conflicts manually?
Fairly tolerant, I don’t see this being too much of an issue for my specific use case

Would you primarily be using offline mode on desktop or mobile?
Mobile. Ideally Airtable would be installed on a tablet we could take to the field in a pelican case.


  • New Participant
  • February 4, 2020

In January 2018 I posted offline mode was critical to me. That hasn’t changed and I’m still not using Airtable because of it. I wouldn’t keep checking if I didn’t like this product.


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