To enable disk persistence you should enable the flag persistenceEnabled
in the FirebaseDatabaseInstance
object of your application:
Android
FirebaseDatabase.getInstance().setPersistenceEnabled(true);
iOS
Database.database().isPersistenceEnabled = true //Swift
[FIRDatabase database].persistenceEnabled = YES; //Objetive-C
If you want to disable the persistence in some moment of your app lifecycle you should remember to disable it in the same way:
Android
FirebaseDatabase.getInstance().setPersistenceEnabled(false);
iOS
Database.database().isPersistenceEnabled = false //Swift
[FIRDatabase database].persistenceEnabled = NO; //Objetive-C