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How to back up Gmail to Hotmail or a desktop email program
But where should I back up to? There are two choices: use a regular desktop email program, like Outlook or Thunderbird, or use an alternate webmail provider like Hotmail.
To get started, you'll need to activate POP support on your Gmail account. Head to Settings, and look for this section:
For step 1 select 'Enable POP for all mail' to give your backup program full access to your Gmail message store. Under 2, set the dropdown to keep Gmail's copy -- just in case the program you're using to backup your account doesn't fully respect the 'leave a copy' setting (which we'll get to in a second).
Now that POP access has been enabled, it's time to configure your chosen app to retrieve a copy of each message in your Gmail inbox. I'm setting up Hotmail, so we'll start there. Click the gear next to Inbox, and then click Get email from another account.
On the following screen, click add an account, and then click advanced options (it's below the password field). When the page reloads, enter your Gmail address, username (your address minus the @gmail.com part), password, and pop.gmail.com for the server address.
Leave the port as 995 and make sure the SSL and 'leave a copy' are both checked. Click next, then tell Hotmail how you want to label your Gmail messages when it backs them up. Click save, and you're all done!
Setting up any desktop mail program (like Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Microsoft Outlook) only requires that POP access is enabled in Gmail and that you have the information I mentioned above. Just make sure, when you create the account, that you look for the leave a copy on the server option, otherwise your chosen program will clean out your Gmail inbox -- and while downloading might be fairly speedy, uploading all that mail again can be rather tedious. Google offers full setup insctructions for many popular email apps on the Gmail help site.
Windows users can also download a handy program called Gmail Backup, which is unsurprisingly designed for exactly this task.
If you want complete control over your Gmail backup, use a desktop mail program. If you want
a solution which is up and running quickly, use a webmail app like Hotmail. Because Hotmail and Gmail are both in the cloud, your mail will likely back up faster than if you try downloading it to your desktop.
Comments
25
Subscribe to commentsliepinseFeb 28th 2011 9:28AM
What about Opera built in email?
EdisMar 1st 2011 1:47AM
There is also free util for backing up and restoring complete Gmail account (including Google Apps accounts).
http://www.gmail-backup.com/
I've been using it for a some time as backup for our Google Apps accounts.
DeanoFeb 28th 2011 2:39PM
@Edis That site is super dead.
Lee MathewsFeb 28th 2011 9:43AM
I actually mentioned it at the end of the post, Edis.
ChhokanuFeb 28th 2011 10:56AM
@Lee Mathews
But Lee, the link is dead!
EdisMar 1st 2011 1:54AM
@Lee Mathews
:(
Seems I havent read whole article.
Sorry.
smoganFeb 28th 2011 10:15AM
I use "Mailstore Home" as Backup-Solution for all my Email-Stuff. It supports a lot of kinds of Acoounts, POP, IMAP, Webmail-Systems and Desktop-Apps... there also is a portable Version...
http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx
ejaysnetFeb 28th 2011 10:43AM
or use www.backupify.com
EJ HillFeb 28th 2011 10:44AM
I've been using Backupify.com for months now - it's FREE
Lee MathewsFeb 28th 2011 10:46AM
@EJ Hill it's free up to 2GB -- which is admittedly a lot of email. Still, these other solutions will handle far more data and are also free.
3tearFeb 28th 2011 7:42PM
@Lee Mathews Buckupify are currently giving away pro versions of their backup service - http://blog.backupify.com/2011/02/28/prevent-your-next-gmail-blackout-get-a-free-year-of-backupify/
CharlesJRFeb 28th 2011 11:37AM
Or if you use OSX, you could just drag your IMAP email right into a folder in Apple Mail called ON MY MAC.
This will pull all your mail off of Google on save it to your computer directly.
CharlesJR
DAJFeb 28th 2011 12:03PM
This is not really a backup -- what about your sent items!
But it is a start as most people would never consider keeping their own backup of 'cloud' mail
rl78Feb 28th 2011 12:27PM
I have been using Offline Gmail for awhile.
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-in-labs-offline-gmail.html
Local copies for backup and viewing was my concern when switching to a web based email client. This helped for the most part. Using offline mail, and another email client should keeps your emails safe.
minibarFeb 28th 2011 2:07PM
i've found local email copies from thunderbird/outlook incomplete due to performance optimizations (for me, only the first X emails per folder were downloaded,) so i would not rely on that backup method without testing. more confusing during actual recovery, "deleted" messages remain in complete form but are tagged invisible until folders are compacted (for me, more variations between pop and imap access.) been awhile since i tried gmail-->hotmail but that wasn't productive last time here. backups are critical, so i hope you're actually verifying these methods actually work.
Lee MathewsFeb 28th 2011 2:08PM
@minibar Live Mail seemed to grab everything for me via POP, and Hotmail finished up the import this morning (all however many thousands of messages).
SilverWaveFeb 28th 2011 2:31PM
>or use an alternate webmail provider like Hotmail.
How I laughed and laughed.
Go on tell me another :-D
deibu76Mar 5th 2011 4:00AM
@SilverWave: I know, I know... I wouldn't recommend anybody set up a hotmail address these days with all the trouble for which they are notorious.
But I have a hotmail address I've been using for 11 yrs, and it works almost perfectly!! Since I'm a "legacy" user, it has worked w/ POP using just about every email program on every platform - first Outlook & Outlook Express, later Thunderbird (Windows, Mac and Linux), Apple Mail on a Mac, finally Evolution, Postler and Kmail w/ Linux. No Microsoft ads attached to the bottom of my emails using POP. People complain about spam w/ Hotmail, but I don't get any of it these days! Today I did get an email from Macy's about their 1-day sale (last online order was 2002), and a Friendster birthday alert. Not actually spam - I get 4-5 of those a day so no big deal.... I usually can selectively just delete those from both my inbox locally & online w/ the blackberry. Also, 25GB storage can't be beat nowadays.
But, no IMAP and it's "hotmail.com"... Its like aol.com. Your email address says you like to email friends A LOT! Topics such as "what friendship is about", "You KNOW you're 70's kid when...".... Animated GIFs of Windows 98 errors, Pres. Clinton or puppies...
I finally switched to gmail recently (even though I setup an account 6 yrs ago). Forwarding the hotmail. So far so good.. But, I never had problems with hotmail - guess because I'm an old fart. lol.
Lee MathewsFeb 28th 2011 2:39PM
@Deano If you use the link I posted (to download.com) you can still get the program.
EdisMar 1st 2011 1:54AM
@Deano
:)
"Gmail Backup" in Google it is still first first result, so this little glitch in Gmail service seems to have killed server.