Working Offline in Overleaf

Overleaf provides a number of integrations which enable you to create and sync local copies of your projects, so that you can work offline using local text editors, and can keep these copies in sync with Overleaf when you're back online.

You can use any plain text editor to edit your projects locally, and you can download a free installation of LaTeX to compile your projects locally as well. You can see some options for installing LaTeX here: https://www.latex-project.org/get/ . To ensure you can run all of the packages of Overleaf "out-of-the-box", you can download the TeXLive distribution, and you can compile with Latexmk to compile everything in one go (see this article for more information on how Overleaf compiles your projects).

Note that it is not currently possible to use the Overleaf-hosted web editor whilst offline, as all compilations are run on our servers.

Dropbox sync

Overleaf provides an automatic two-way sync between Overleaf and Dropbox. A user with a premium subscription can link their Overleaf account to Dropbox. Once linked, any changes to your project in Overleaf will automatically sync to your Dropbox folder on your computer, and any changes you make locally in Dropbox will appear in your project online.

More information about Dropbox sync in Overleaf is available at: Dropbox Synchronization

Please note that a user having Dropbox synchronization turned on does not enable collaborators to also sync projects to their local Dropbox folders (unless they also have a premium subscription). So this can be thought of as a 'personal' feature. For premium users who wish to enable collaborators to sync locally, we recommend the Git or GitHub sync options described below.

Git and GitHub

Overleaf also provides Git and GitHub sync options. As well as providing another quick way to take backups, they also make collaboration easier across teams where different authors like to work on LaTeX documents in different ways.

For example, if you like to use Overleaf in the browser, but your collaborator prefers to work using a locally installed LaTeX editor, you can use the Git or GitHub sync to ensure your work stays connected. How this works depends a little on which option you choose:

GitHub: A user with a premium subscription can link any project they own to a GitHub repo. Once the project is linked, all users in the project can click the button to sync it. So this can be thought of as a 'per project' feature.

Git: If the project is owned by a user with a premium subscription, all members of the project can git clone/push/pull to it. If a user has a premium subscription, they can git clone/push/pull to all projects they have access to. This is like a superset of GitHub and Dropbox permission model - it's personal, and per project.

More information on how to set this up can be found at: Using Git and GitHub

Please note that in order to use the GitHub sync in Overleaf, users will need to have a GitHub account. A free GitHub account allows you to create public or private repositories.

Changes from Overleaf v1 (retired in 2019)

Note: for context on Overleaf v1 and v2, please see this FAQ article.

The git integration in Overleaf v1 was a free feature during its long beta period, and continues to be available for free to all users whose accounts were created on Overleaf v1. For users who signed up after Overleaf v2 was out of beta, GitHub sync and direct git access are available on our premium plans, like on ShareLaTeX. As with many other v2 features, this means that the owner of the project will need a paid subscription in order to connect their project with GitHub or enable direct git access, but their collaborators can use the integration with free accounts. While it was possible to sync an Overleaf v1 project with GitHub, it required setting up git remotes and manually keeping them in sync. We found that most people used Overleaf v1’s git support in conjunction with another git hosting service, most frequently GitHub, so the addition of direct GitHub sync in Overleaf v2 was an improvement for many users.

Dropbox sync is also a premium feature in Overleaf v2, as it was in Overleaf v1. Overleaf v1 only supported a one-way sync to Dropbox, where you could manually save your project to Dropbox with one click. This wasn't enough to take your work offline and then back online easily, and had a number of other limitations. With two-way Dropbox sync in Overleaf v2, you are able to work on your projects offline and switch back to working in Overleaf more easily.