---
title: "Writing offline"
description: "How Galley's offline writing works (beta): chapters save to your device, sync when you reconnect, and how conflicts, installing as an app, and the honest limits behave."
source: https://usegalley.com/docs/offline-writing
---
# Writing offline Beta

Lose the connection mid-sentence and nothing happens: you keep writing, every
chapter of your book is already on your device, and it all syncs itself the moment you're back.
It's new, so I'm calling it beta. Here's exactly how it behaves, including the edges.

## How it works

When you open a book, the whole manuscript comes with it, every chapter, not just the one on
screen. As you type, your words are saved **to your device** every couple of
seconds, and to your account whenever there's a connection. Offline, the save indicator changes
to **“On this device”**; when the connection returns, Galley works through every
chapter you touched and sends each one up, then the indicator settles back to “Saved.” There's
no button and nothing to remember.

A quiet bonus even when you're never offline: because saving to the device happens every couple
of seconds, a crashed tab or a force-quit costs you a sentence at most, not minutes.

## Install it, and even a reload works offline

Galley can be installed from your browser, look for the install icon in the address bar
(Chrome and Edge show it; it's called “Install Galley”). Installed, it opens in its own window
with a dock icon, and typing the address or reopening the app works with no connection at all:
the writing room itself is kept on your device, not just your words. Without installing, offline
writing still works, just keep the tab open while you're disconnected.

## What works offline, and what can't

- **Works: writing, everywhere in the book**: Type in any chapter, switch between chapters, use focus and typewriter modes, find & replace, everything on the page runs on your device.

- **Needs a connection: structure & files**: Adding, renaming, reordering or deleting chapters; importing a manuscript; uploading images; exporting PDF and EPUB (books are built on the server); signing in on a new device. These grey out or say so rather than half-working.

## Two devices, one chapter

If you wrote on your laptop offline and also edited the same chapter on another computer,
Galley never makes you merge anything and never throws either version away. The words you wrote
most recently win the page, and the other version is kept in that chapter's
[History](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision), labelled *“Kept from another device”*, compare or
restore it any time.

## The honest limits

- **One first visit per device.** A computer that has never opened your book has
nothing to show, open Galley once with a connection and you're covered from then on. (Every
writing tool ever made shares this rule; native apps just hide it behind “install first.”)
- **Each browser is its own device.** Chrome's copy and Safari's copy are
separate. Write offline in the browser you normally use.
- **Private/incognito windows keep nothing.** Close one and its offline copy is
gone. Your account copy is untouched, but words written offline in a private window that was
closed before reconnecting can't be recovered.
- **Days offline are fine; forever isn't.** Your device holds many novels' worth
of writing, but the account copy is the master, reconnect now and then so it catches up.

🛩️ This is a **beta** feature: it's tested, but it hasn't been through a
thousand real writers' plane rides yet. If anything behaves oddly, use
**Help & feedback** in the app, reports from real trips are exactly what
graduates it out of beta.

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