Offline access is back for Gmail and few other Google services, but this time there is no Gears. Google has announced a new Chrome Web App for Gmail which enables offline access powered by HTML5.

Moreover, similar Chrome apps will be available for other Google services including Google Calendar and Google Docs. These apps store data for offline access using HTML5 technologies, and users can read & write data without active internet connection. This offline access is quite useful for the users of Chromebook, as they have no other option to store mails and documents locally.

Gmail Offline is currently available for only Google Chrome. On support for other browsers, Google says: “We also look forward to making offline access more widely available when other browsers support advanced functionality”.

Earlier, Gmail’s offline access was powered by Google’s own Gears technology, and available to Firefox users as well. Gears support was revoked recently and the project is abandoned now.