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Backing up your Gmail locally
If you're one of the folks that saw the story about Google having some trouble with a few Gmail accounts, and wondered what you could do to protect yourself from such an unfortunate eventuality, you're in luck. It's a simple tip, and one that can be implemented in a number of ways, but the gist of it is that you're going to want to download all of your email out of your Gmail account using the POP download functionality in your account.Now, if you're wanting to use an email client that you already happen to use for other mail (for example, your work email), you may not want all of that Gmail spilling right into your inbox. So to prevent that, make sure that your email client supports message rules based on the incoming mail account. In Outlook 2007 (I remember seeing it in 2003 as well) there's a rule called "through the specified account" that allows you to choose which incoming account it should act on. That way you can move all mail coming through a specific account to a folder, which can then be moved to a different PST file for archiving.
Once you've determined how you're going to keep from mixing up all of your email, go ahead with setting up the connection.
To back up ALL of your Gmail, simply navigate to the Forwarding and POP section of your Settings in Gmail, and in the POP Download section click the radio button beside "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)".
Then configure the email client exactly as described on the Configuring instructions link at the bottom of the POP Download section. There are instructions for virtually every major email client out there, and even if your client isn't listed, it should be fairly simple to see how to configure yours from looking at instructions for a similar client.
And that's it - now all there is to do is wait, and wait, and wait. If you're like me and your Gmail box is already well over half full, it can take quite a while to download close to 2 Gigs of mail. But think of the peace of mind you'll have knowing that your mail is safely in your hands.
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsEl GuapoJan 3rd 2007 6:39PM
What about signing up another gmail account and setting it to use POP to get email from your original account? Instant copy of everything in case of accidental mass deletions
RickJan 3rd 2007 2:52PM
Thunderbird handles these tasks beautifully. This is exactly how I utilize my GMail account.
SigTillJan 3rd 2007 6:52PM
But which e-mail program to use? (I have tried Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird, Opera-mail)
I have the following needs:
1. Easily backup mail and adressbook AND possibility to import both in gmail at a later time
2. Fast mail-only (no chat, msn, browser, rss etc) application
3. Freeware-ish
All help appreciated
Darien AllenJan 3rd 2007 4:51PM
I'm assuming that all mail in your gmail account regardless of what label it's attached to just gets dumped in your inbox in your email client? I guess if I wanted it to be like my actual gmail I'd have to recreate labels as folders and then recreate the filters as outlook rules? That would cover everything except those item's I've manually assigned a label to I guess...
PrashanthJan 3rd 2007 10:39PM
My 2c:
How about setting up a forwarding rule in Gmail; so in addition to your Gmail inbox; you have a copy of all mails in a different email account.
As to SigTill's questions, on fast free email clients:
http://www.portableapps.com
http://www.portablefreeware.com
both sport free and portable (read run off a USB drive) email clients.
I personally use the thunderbird portable edition; slap on a lightning plugin for scheduling and you are set.
Thank you,
YangJan 20th 2007 11:07AM
Have you downloaded close to 2 Gigs of mail?
I only have 125 mb of close 2000 emails in my inbox, but everytime when I use Thunderbird, always can download about 380 emails and stopped, never can continue.
How did you do? I had set "Enable all email" but seems Gmail has a limite to download. I use Outlook Express and the almost the same result, never can download the entire emails of a account.