Offline Use

Poly is a cloud-first product, but it's designed to keep working when you're offline. A local cache layer stores your file metadata and frequently accessed files so you can browse and work without an internet connection.

What is the offline cache?

The offline cache is an automatically maintained local copy of your Poly data. Poly maintains it in the background whenever you're connected — so by the time you go offline, you already have what you need.

The cache includes:

• Metadata — file names, sizes, types, folder structure, and thumbnails for every file in your storage
• File content — the full content of files you've recently opened or that Poly has pre-fetched based on your usage patterns

The cache lives on your device in a secure sandbox directory. You can set a maximum size for the cache in the desktop app's Settings → Offline Cache. When the cache reaches that limit, Poly automatically evicts the least recently used files to make room for new ones.

What works offline

When you're offline, you can:

• Browse your file hierarchy — your full folder structure is available from the cache
• View previews and metadata — thumbnails and file details load from the local cache
• Open cached files — any file whose content is in the cache opens normally
• Edit text files — changes are saved locally and synced when you reconnect
• Search file names — searches across file names and cached metadata work offline

What requires a connection:

• Uploading new files
• Viewing the full content of files not yet cached
• Sharing and collaboration features
• AI agent capabilities

Desktop vs. web offline support

The desktop app has the strongest offline support. It has direct filesystem access and can pre-fetch more aggressively. The macOS Finder integration surfaces cached files as normal Finder items, so you can open them in any application even without a network connection.

The web browser has more limited offline capabilities due to browser storage restrictions, but still provides access to cached metadata and recently viewed files.

Sync when you reconnect

When your connection is restored, Poly syncs automatically:

1. Any files you edited offline are uploaded in the background.
2. Any new files or changes from other devices sync down.
3. Conflicts (if you and someone else edited the same file offline) are presented for resolution.

You'll see a brief "Syncing" indicator in the status bar while this happens. For large sync jobs, the jobs panel shows progress.

Controlling what's cached

By default, Poly caches:

• All file metadata (always)
• The most recently accessed files (up to your cache size limit)

In the desktop app's Settings → Offline Cache, you can:

• See how much local storage the cache is using
• Pin specific folders to always keep their contents fully cached
• Clear the cache (you'll lose offline access to file content until Poly re-fetches)
• Change the cache size limit