Managing Offline Files Using Windows Explorer

Items (files or folders) that are available offline are displayed in Windows Explorer with a Sync icon overlay, whereas items that are unavailable offline are displayed in ghosted form as placeholders with an X icon overlay. To make an item in a network share available offline, right-click the file and then select Always Available Offline (you must be online to perform this action). You can also make an item available offline using the Offline Files tab of the item's properties sheet.

You can also configure the Details view of Windows Explorer to show the offline status and availability of items in network shares. The offline availability of an item can be either of the following:

• Available The item has been made available for offline use.
• Not available The item has not been made available for offline use.

The offline status of an item can be:

• Online Offline Files is in online mode so that both the network version and the locally cached version of the item are available. (Reads are satisfied from cache; writes, opens, and creates go to the server.)
• Offline (not connected) Offline Files is in auto offline mode, so only the locally cached version of the item is available.
• Offline (working offline) Offline Files is in manual offline mode, so only the locally cached version of the item is available.
• Offline (slow connection) Same behavior as Offline (not connected).
• Offline Neither version of the item is available because the item has not been made available for offline use.

To synchronize a particular offline item in Windows Explorer, right-click the file and select Sync. To synchronize all offline items in a network share manually, click Sync on the command bar. If an offline item is online, you can also synchronize it by clicking Sync Now on the Offline Files tab of the item's properties sheet. Other ways of synchronizing offline items are described in the section titled "Managing Offline Files Using Sync Center" later in this tutorial.