Mobile Offline Support

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Design offline-first mobile applications that provide seamless user experience regardless of connectivity.

When to Use

• Building apps that work without internet connection
• Implementing seamless sync when connectivity returns
• Handling data conflicts between device and server
• Reducing server load with intelligent caching
• Improving app responsiveness with local storage

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

import AsyncStorage from '@react-native-async-storage/async-storage';
import NetInfo from '@react-native-community/netinfo';

class StorageManager {
  static async saveItems(items) {
    try {
      await AsyncStorage.setItem(
        'items_cache',
        JSON.stringify({ data: items, timestamp: Date.now() })
      );
    } catch (error) {
      console.error('Failed to save items:', error);
    }
  }

  static async getItems() {
    try {
      const data = await AsyncStorage.getItem('items_cache');
      return data ? JSON.parse(data) : null;
    } catch (error) {
      console.error('Failed to retrieve items:', error);
      return null;
    }
  }

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Implement robust local storage
• Use automatic sync when online
• Provide visual feedback for offline status
• Queue actions for later sync
• Handle conflicts gracefully
• Cache frequently accessed data
• Implement proper error recovery
• Test offline scenarios thoroughly
• Use compression for large data
• Monitor storage usage

❌ DON'T

• Assume constant connectivity
• Sync large files frequently
• Ignore storage limitations
• Force unnecessary syncing
• Lose data on offline mode
• Store sensitive data unencrypted
• Accumulate infinite queue items
• Ignore sync failures silently
• Sync in tight loops
• Deploy without offline testing