Feature request: Allow mount to start without connection

The associated forum post URL from https://forum.rclone.org

• none

What is your current rclone version (output from rclone version)?

rclone v1.73.4

• os/version: cachyos (64 bit)
• os/kernel: 6.19.8-arch1-1-surface (x86_64)
• os/type: linux
• os/arch: amd64
• go/version: go1.26.2-X:nodwarf5
• go/linking: dynamic
• go/tags: none

What problem are you are trying to solve?

I like to use mount as it only synchronizes the files I used most recently. The command I run is:

rclone mount onedrive: ~/OneDrive --vfs-cache-mode full --vfs-cache-max-size 20G --vfs-cache-max-age 24h --allow-non-empty --poll-interval 5m --cache-dir ~/.cache/rclone --filter-from ~/.config/rclone/onedrive.filter

If you shut down your laptop and restart it somewhere without internet connectivity, the mount won't work until you regain internet connectivity. This means that even if you have the cache stored locally, you cannot mount the folder. Of course you can access the files in the cache, but that feels like a hack.

How do you think rclone should be changed to solve that?

It would be great if you could start mount while offline and that mount command waits for a network connection before it tries connecting to the share in the background.

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Start with the rclone mount command and its --vfs-cache-mode full behavior, then run the reported command while offline to observe startup and cached-file access. No source file or test is named in the issue. Done means the mount can start without connectivity, expose available cached content, and defer connecting to the remote share until the network returns.