How to Enable or Disable Offline Files in Windows 10?

Enable or Disable Offline Files in Windows 10

Have you heard about the Windows 10 feature called Offline Files? Well, this specific feature of Windows allows the users making network files and folders available offline while you are not connected to that network. The feature serves a very useful purpose when you want to access network resources while staying offline. But most of the users are unaware about activating and deactivating the offline feature in Windows system. So, here's how to enable or disable offline files in Windows 10.

Point to Note: It is worth mentioning that Offline Files is not any new feature of Windows 10 while this was also available in Windows 2000 system.

Before learning to enable or disable offline files in Windows 10, it's important to understand what are offline files actually?

What do you mean by Offline Files?

With the help of Offline Files feature, you can make network files available to a user, even when the network connection to the server gets unavailable or slow. When you work online, file access performance is usually at the speed of the network and server. But when you work offline, files can be retrieved from the Offline Files folder at local access speeds. However, a computer even switches to Offline Mode when:

• The Offline mode has been enabled always
• The server is unavailable due to some reasons
• The network connection gets slower than the configured threshold value
• The user switches to Offline Mode manually with the help of Work offline button present in File Explorer

Well, it is even possible to enable or disable offline files in Windows 10 either from Control Panel or through a Registry Tweak. Let's review both the methods one by one.

In order to enable or disable offline files in Windows 10 from Control Panel, you need to do the following:

Step 1: Firstly, launch the classic Control Panel app.

Step 2: Now, switch its view to either "Large icons" or "Small icons" as shown on your screen.

Step 3: Next, search for the Sync Center icon.

Step 4: Now, you need to open the Sync Center and then click on the link Manage offline files on the left side of the
screen.

Step 5: Here, you have to click on the Enable offline files button.

Step 6: Finally, you have to restart your Windows 10 in order to apply the latest changes.

So, you have completed the process successfully.

Alternatively, you can enable or disable offline files in Windows 10 with a Registry tweak.

Step 1: Initially, enable the Offline Files with a Registry tweak

Step 2: For this, launch the Registry Editor app.

Step 3: Next, go to the following Registry key.

Step 4: On the right side, you can either modify or create a new 32-Bit DWORD value Start.

Note: In case you are running 64-bit Windows, you can still create a 32-bit DWORD value. Optionally, you can set its value
to 1 in decimal to enable the Offline Files feature.

Step 5: Next, you need to go to this specific key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CscService.

Step 6: Thereafter, you can set the Start 32-bit DWORD value to 2.

Step 7: Lastly, restart the Windows 10.

So, yes, you have successfully completed the process. In order to save your time, you can simply download the following
ready-to-use Registry files:

Please note that the undo tweak is also included.

Now that you are looking to disable Offline Files, you can use the same Control Panel applet. For this, you will need to navigate to Control Panel >> All Control Panel Items >> Sync Center. Then, click on the link Manage offline files on the left side. Further, in the next dialog box, you can click on the button Disable Offline Files.

Likewise, you can use the provided Registry tweak to disable the Offline Files. Moreover, you are required to apply it manually by setting the Start 32-bit DWORD value to 4 under the keys HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services \CSC and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CscService.

That's all about how to enable or disable offline files in Windows 10 system.