What is an Offline IM, and why would I want one?

[Anna Nova]

Been in SL for a few years (7+) without feeling the need for an offline IM.  What are they? Why would I want one? And now I can have 80 a month what can I do with them?  (Physically impossible answers will be ignored).

[Luna Bliss]

7 minutes ago, anna2358 said:

offline IM.  What are they? Why would I want one?

They are great for customer support as when I log in all the messages are open and waiting for me so I don't have to search for odd names.
Names like ((o0o*^DemonGirrlRulz>><<0))
There was one day I simply could not find the person in Search to respond to their message and gave up. They probably thought I just had terrible customer support.

[Anna Nova]

Oh so mainly for commercial work.  Okay that explains why I never needed them.

[Luna Bliss]

21 minutes ago, anna2358 said:

Oh so mainly for commercial work.  Okay that explains why I never needed them.

Well I suppose if you didn't want to miss a friends message, or a roleplay group message, they are handy.

It's easy to forget to respond to business emails when they're mixed in with my personal ones in my email account, not to mention all the spam.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Luna Bliss

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

You can reply to them offline as well, which is nice, particularly with friends who are in other time zones. Someone can send me an IM while I'm not logged on, I get it in my email, and I can reply back right then if I want to.

(Sure, they could just email me directly, but only if I have chosen to give them my email address.)

[Morena Tully]

I've never been capped on them in my 13 years here, but offlines can be invaluable if you have a friend who's been gone for months or years and they came back and are trying to touch base when you're not here. I've noticed on an alt I hadn't logged on in forever, that things as simple as toasts from something you may or may not have willingly subscribed to, as well as group notices, *will* cap them, so hearing there's an increase helps me feel a little more confident that I won't miss something important if I can't log in for a week. This non-IM type of cap is the main reason I turn off all but the most vital group notices.

[Maitimo]

Mine cap regularly (I don't log in inworld every day) but I get them by email which means I can see and answer them on my phone when I'm nowhere near an SL viewer.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

IM to email is so convenient, not just for business but it's so convenient to quickly reply to a friend when you can't/don't feel like logging on.

[Anna Nova]

All the replies are interesting.  I just never felt the need.

If I like someone enough to friend them (Partner plus 3, at last count) I usually give them my protonmail account for privacy from spying misgovernments and corporations.

[Lindal Kidd]

Offlines are immensely useful both for business and for friends.  It's a way to stay connected to people and events, even if you aren't actually logged in.  Or, you can think of it as a sort of notification that something has happened, and you should go log in to deal with it.

[Alyona Su]

The main benefit of offlines is that they keep coming even after IM cap is reached. And if you reply to that email within a reasonable time (delete quoted material before sending) you can actaully have an IM conversation with someone while offline.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

26 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

The main benefit of offlines is that they keep coming even after IM cap is reached. And if you reply to that email within a reasonable time (delete quoted material before sending) you can actaully have an IM conversation with someone while offline.

Yeah, I do that a lot. I think the time limit before an offline saved in email expires (so that you can no longer reply directly to it) is something like 5 days.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

On 6/2/2019 at 9:51 PM, anna2358 said:

Been in SL for a few years (7+) without feeling the need for an offline IM.  What are they? Why would I want one? And now I can have 80 a month what can I do with them?  (Physically impossible answers will be ignored).

I don't feel like the other responses are explicit enough about what "Offline IMs" actually are, so here:

If somebody sends you an IM while you are offline, the messaging system "remembers" it until you do log in, and then all of those saved messages are delivered to you again. If you've reached your Offline IM cap, any further IMs will not be stored and you'll never receive them.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

3 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

 If you've reached your Offline IM cap, any further IMs will not be stored and you'll never receive them.

Which is why it's a good idea to have them sent to email. The limit doesn't apply there.

[Lindal Kidd]

1 hour ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I don't feel like the other responses are explicit enough about what "Offline IMs" actually are, so here:

If somebody sends you an IM while you are offline, the messaging system "remembers" it until you do log in, and then all of those saved messages are delivered to you again. If you've reached your Offline IM cap, any further IMs will not be stored and you'll never receive them.

No, this is not what they are.  An offline IM is where you are offline, someone sends you an IM in world, and the IM is sent to you via email.  Or at least, that's how I think of "offline IMs".

But yes, you get them when you log in again, too.  Up to your cap.

[Beth Macbain]

2 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

No, this is not what they are. 

Yes, that is what they are. Many people don't have their offline IMs set to be sent to their email. 

[Lindal Kidd]

Just now, Beth Macbain said:

Yes, that is what they are. Many people don't have their offline IMs set to be sent to their email. 

Is not!

(Is too!)

Is not!

(Is too!)

MOMMMMMM!

[Wulfie Reanimator]

6 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

No, this is not what they are.  An offline IM is where you are offline, someone sends you an IM in world, and the IM is sent to you via email.  Or at least, that's how I think of "offline IMs".

But yes, you get them when you log in again, too.  Up to your cap.

What you call "an offline IM" and what LL refers to as "offline IM cap" are two distinctly separate things that are easy to define.

The limit change, which is what prompted the question in this thread, was about the number of messages stored for later delivery. Not IM-to-Email.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Anna Nova]

10 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I don't feel like the other responses are explicit enough about what "Offline IMs" actually are, so here:

If somebody sends you an IM while you are offline, the messaging system "remembers" it until you do log in, and then all of those saved messages are delivered to you again. If you've reached your Offline IM cap, any further IMs will not be stored and you'll never receive them.

Revelation!

I was thinking about it backwards.  I thought the cap was on the number of offline IMs sent as emails.  But the cap is on the number held in-world.  So you get an infinite number of emails, but only 80 (now) stacked in-world.   It's not IM's sent to you offline, but IM's held for you while you are off-line.  Doh!

Now, how to turn it off...  (not the emails, the remembering)

Thanks Wulfie!

[Marianne Little]

10 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

Yes, that is what they are. Many people don't have their offline IMs set to be sent to their email. 

Like me. This is one of the reasons I wish it was a "Business Premium" and a "Land Premium". Instead, LL throw everything in a bag and increase the price.

I hear two different reasons that are most common when many people say when they explain why they aren't Premium:

1: I don't need the land or home part, I have rented a 4098 in 7 years/ have my own island/ et cetera. I have a business and need groups for all my business events + that my customers can reach me when I'm offline.

2: I just want a Home, and now I can't afford it anymore. I don't use the other Premium benefits.

Of course it's others too, I don't say it's the only two reasons. No one complain about the stipend though.... ☺️ unless they say it should be more...

[GypsiesSoul]

13 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I don't feel like the other responses are explicit enough about what "Offline IMs" actually are, so here:

If somebody sends you an IM while you are offline, the messaging system "remembers" it until you do log in, and then all of those saved messages are delivered to you again. If you've reached your Offline IM cap, any further IMs will not be stored and you'll never receive them.

ok so if u reach the offline IM limit, u wont recieve any extra IMs when u log back in .....but would u have still receive emails about those unstored extra IMs?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, GypsiesSoul said:

ok so if u reach the offline IM limit, u wont recieve any extra IMs when u log back in .....but would u have still receive emails about those unstored extra IMs?

Yes. With emails enabled, the messaging system will send the messages before they are forgotten. This way the messages are stored in your email instead of the messaging system (thus costing nothing to LL).

3 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Like me. This is one of the reasons I wish it was a "Business Premium" and a "Land Premium". Instead, LL throw everything in a bag and increase the price.

I hear two different reasons that are most common when many people say when they explain why they aren't Premium:

1: I don't need the land or home part, I have rented a 4098 in 7 years/ have my own island/ et cetera. I have a business and need groups for all my business events + that my customers can reach me when I'm offline.

2: I just want a Home, and now I can't afford it anymore. I don't use the other Premium benefits.

Of course it's others too, I don't say it's the only two reasons. No one complain about the stipend though.... ☺️ unless they say it should be more...

This is why I'm hoping the new Premium tier will split the current Premium perks rather than adding too many more things on top (and being even more expensive). Ideally, you would get to choose any number of all of the features you want and after you've picked past a certain point, the tier/price goes up.

Edited June 4, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Sasy Scarborough]

I do not know how people function without IMs to email set to save. I have all my accounts forwarded to the one email and filters created for things that are not necessary to see going to a separate folder. I look at emails before I log in world, because I want to know what to be prepared for work wise, how to expect my day to play out. If I log in knowing exactly who has IMd then if I do not have that IM sitting there waiting I know to look for them and follow it up. 

Because of bugs to the system where sometimes replying even within an hour or so can actually uncheck your respond to IMs via email, I even have a scripted device in my home that sends me an IM every hour so when offline they all come in one by one and I can know at  a glance if my offlines are functioning correctly or not. 

I may have an offline IMs addiction or something 😛

[Alyona Su]

19 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

What you call "an offline IM" and what LL refers to as "offline IM cap" are two distinctly separate things that are easy to define.

The limit change, which is what prompted the question in this thread, was about the number of messages stored for later delivery. Not IM-to-Email.

THIS. This is what it is...

The emailed IM is not the "offline IM" - the IM in the chat system in-world that is stored and waiting for you when you log in is the "offline IM". So an "offline IM cap" is the number of IMs that will be stored waiting for you to log in and see. If you are *smart enough* to have IMs sent to the email then you will *never* miss an IM while not logged into SL and you can reply to the email to have an "offline conversation". When you log back in you will get the first 15 "offline" IMs (whatever the cap is) - called "offline IM" because they were sent to you while you were offline.

The only drawback is that the email Ims are not logged (if you save IM logs) unless you save the emails as logs.

[BelindaN]

/me facepalms

I only just realised that offline IM to e-mail is possible.

I need to tick that box later today...........👩‍💻