# Why and how do Discourse forums work when offline?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-and-how-do-discourse-forums-work-when-offline/252881
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 25, 2023, 4:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-and-how-do-discourse-forums-work-when-offline/252881 "2023-01-25T16:28:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![twofoursixeight](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/twofoursixeight/32/574822_2.png) [@twofoursixeight](https://meta.discourse.org/u/twofoursixeight)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2023, 4:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-and-how-do-discourse-forums-work-when-offline/252881/1 "2023-01-25T16:28:40Z")

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Hello. I would like to know why there is a feature where you can use Discourse offline? (It partially works, some of the user cards work, and a few topics are loadable.) However, the issue is that it lacks functionality and non-loaded pages. I would also like to know how the offline stuff works.

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### Author: ![merefield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/merefield/32/176214_2.png) [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2023, 5:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-and-how-do-discourse-forums-work-when-offline/252881/2 "2023-01-25T17:44:04Z")

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Probably because of the javascript and data cached locally in the browser.

Clear your browser cache and I suspect you will no longer have these facilities!

It’s not intended to run fully offline, but this behaviour gives it some resilience when dealing with e.g. bad mobile connections.

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### Author: ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2023, 8:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-and-how-do-discourse-forums-work-when-offline/252881/3 "2023-01-25T20:34:12Z")

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> [@2468](#):
>
> I would also like to know how the offline stuff works

We cache the last hundreds of requests on the browser by leveraging the WorkBoxJS library.

If an endpoint, like a user card, wasn’t loaded in recently it won’t be cached and won’t be accessible while offline.

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### Author: ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/system/32/443519_2.png) [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2023, 8:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-and-how-do-discourse-forums-work-when-offline/252881/4 "2023-02-24T20:34:50Z")

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