Mobile Configuration
A Mobile Configuration is a legacy Salesforce setup record from the Salesforce Classic Mobile app.
Definition
A Mobile Configuration is a legacy Salesforce setup record from the Salesforce Classic Mobile app. An administrator built one to control exactly which objects and records were pushed to, and kept synced on, a user's mobile device. Each configuration defined a data set (the object filters and record limits that decided what downloaded) and was then assigned to specific users and profiles.
This feature is retired. Salesforce Classic Mobile was switched off on December 1, 2017, which took named Mobile Configurations with it. The modern Salesforce Mobile App does not use admin-defined configurations at all. It decides offline data with an automatic, predictive model instead. The term still appears in older orgs, certification study guides, and archived help pages, so it is worth knowing what it was and what now does its job.
From hand-built data sets to predictive caching
What a Mobile Configuration actually controlled
In Salesforce Classic Mobile, a Mobile Configuration was a named container that an admin created from Setup. Its main job was to define a data set: the set of objects, filter criteria, and per-object record limits that determined what synced down to a phone or BlackBerry device. If the rep had no signal, only the records inside that data set were available, so the configuration was the difference between a usable offline app and an empty one. A configuration also assigned mobilized tabs, controlled which related lists and fields showed, and was linked to specific users and profiles. One org could run several configurations at once, for example a tight data set for field sales and a broader one for managers. Because every record cost device storage and sync bandwidth, admins tuned these data sets carefully, often using ownership filters or recent-activity windows to keep the footprint small. This hand-built, admin-owned model is the single biggest contrast with the app that replaced it, where the platform, not the admin, decides what to cache.
Why Salesforce retired it
Salesforce Classic Mobile was the company's first-generation mobile client, and it carried first-generation assumptions. Admins had to predict, in advance, every record a user might need offline, then encode that guess into filters. Guess too narrowly and reps could not find their accounts. Guess too broadly and sync slowed to a crawl on the slower networks and lower-storage devices of the era. The model also did not keep pace with how Salesforce itself changed. As the platform moved toward Lightning, page layouts, and richer client apps, the older mobile stack could not follow. Salesforce announced the wind-down and set a hard cutoff: on December 1, 2017, the Salesforce Classic Mobile apps were removed from Google Play and the App Store, and signed-in users were logged out with no way back in. With the app gone, the Mobile Configuration records that fed it stopped doing anything useful. The official guidance pointed customers to two paths instead, the standard Salesforce Mobile App for most users, or a custom build on the Salesforce Mobile SDK when an organization truly needed admin-defined offline control.
What replaced it: the Salesforce Mobile App
The direct successor is the Salesforce Mobile App, known as Salesforce1 when it first shipped. The headline change is that admins no longer define offline data sets by hand. The app uses an intelligent, predictive model based on what each person recently viewed and what is coming up on their calendar. In practice it automatically caches recent tasks and dashboards plus roughly the 30 most recent records for the 5 objects that person uses most. The cache follows real behavior, so a rep who lives in Opportunities and a recruiter who lives in Candidates each get a different offline set without an admin building anything. This removes the biggest maintenance burden of the old model, but it also removes the precise control admins once had. You cannot point at a filter and guarantee a specific list of records is offline for a specific profile. For most teams that trade is worth it, because the predictive cache covers the records people actually touch and updates itself as habits change.
How admins shape the modern mobile experience
Even though Mobile Configurations are gone, admins still have real control over the Salesforce Mobile App, just through different tools. Record pages are tailored in the Lightning App Builder, where you can build a Phone form factor variant that is separate from the desktop layout, with its own component order and mobile-specific components. Compact layouts decide which fields appear in the highlights panel at the top of a record, which matters far more on a small screen. The mobile navigation menu and the actions surfaced on each object control what users can reach quickly. Push notifications keep people informed of approvals, mentions, and other events. Org-wide mobile behavior, including session and security policy, is governed through mobile app settings and the MobileSettings metadata type. The mindset shift is important: with Classic Mobile you tuned which data existed on the device, while with the modern app you tune how the experience looks and behaves and let the platform manage the offline cache. Good mobile setup today is mostly layout, navigation, notification, and security work rather than data-set engineering.
When predictive caching is not enough: Mobile SDK
The predictive model fits the majority of sales and service users, but some organizations genuinely need guaranteed, admin-controlled offline data, the very thing a Mobile Configuration used to provide. For those cases the official answer is the Salesforce Mobile SDK. The SDK lets a development team build a fully custom mobile app on top of Salesforce, including a local store and explicit sync rules that decide precisely which records live on the device and how conflicts resolve when connectivity returns. This is a development effort, not a point-and-click setup task, so it suits field operations with strict offline requirements, regulated workflows, or heavily branded apps. Salesforce's retirement guidance specifically named the Mobile SDK as the path for customers who relied on the granular offline control of Classic Mobile. Field Service is a related example of purpose-built offline capability, giving technicians work order details and other data designed to work without a connection. The pattern is consistent: precise offline behavior now comes from a purpose-built or custom app, not from a configuration record toggled in Setup.
Why the term still matters today
A retired feature can still cause real confusion, which is why Mobile Configuration is worth understanding. Older Salesforce documentation, community answers, and even some certification study material still reference creating mobile configurations and data sets, so a newer admin can easily go looking for a Setup node that no longer exists. Knowing the history prevents that wild goose chase and points you straight to the modern equivalents. The term also clarifies a common misconception: the Salesforce Mobile App is not just a renamed Classic Mobile, it works on a fundamentally different caching philosophy, and that difference explains why offline behavior feels less controllable than veterans of the old app may expect. If you inherit a long-lived org, you may still see traces of the old model in metadata or in tribal knowledge from the team. Treating Mobile Configuration as a historical concept, with the Salesforce Mobile App and Mobile SDK as its living replacements, keeps your mental model accurate and your mobile rollout grounded in tools that actually exist.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Mobile Configuration.
- Set Up the Salesforce Mobile AppSalesforce
- MobileSettings | Metadata API Developer GuideSalesforce
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Mobile Configuration.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What does Mobile Configuration in Salesforce broadly govern?
Q2. Which Setup node is the entry point for basic Mobile Configuration?
Q3. What pattern lets Mobile Configuration give a record a different layout on a phone than on the desktop?
Discussion
Loading discussion…