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Written by Hugh Williams
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Monday, 10 November 2008 |
 As you may know, we here at 3B Web Design are avid supporters of most things Google, especially their selection of Google Applications, specifically Google Mail, or Gmail as it is often known. There are many benefits to
using this application suite, most notably its footloose accessibility from anywhere with an internet connection, however, with this accessibility, comes a possible source of headaches, data loss!
If you currently use Gmail through an email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird, then have no fear, all your precious emails will be stored on your computer at work or at home, however, if you only use the web based service in your internet browser such as Internet Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox, then please read on to learn more about a great little tool that could help you sleep easy at night.
Luckily the clever people over at Gmail Backup have come up with the perfect solution. Gmail Backup is able to download complete archives of your Gmail email
account, including all email messages attachments and labels, using Gmail's built-in IMAP capability. It could not be much simpler either, just enter your email
address and password, select a backup folder wherever you want, such as your home computer, or a removable backup drive, and click the Backup
button.
Besides enabling offline access to your archives, you
can use the restore feature to upload messages to another account,
making it easy to transfer old messages to a new account. Not only this, but the nifty little program is also able to restore any or all of these messages, attachments and labels back to your original account should you have any problems.
Just a friendly word of advice, if you are a heavy user, who has thousands of email messages, you may wish to undertake this backup at a quiet period, it may take a few hours to download all your messages!
Have no fear, peace of mind is only a few clicks away...
» 2 Comments
1"Beware of Gmail Backup"
on Wednesday, 18 February 2009 13:18
Before wasting time installing and using Gmail Backup you should read the forum messages (Bugs) on the Gmail Backup Web site.
There are numerous reports of a bug that blocks some messages from being backed up properly. As far as I can see, the developers have not responded to any of these reports.
This is unfortunate because the program does seem to be good. It's very easy to use, and except for the dozens of messages it didn't back up for me, it worked properly for thousands of other messages.
2"The Lesser of Two Evils"
on Wednesday, 18 February 2009 16:30
Hi Robert,
Thank you for taking the time to comment on the article, you raise a valid point in warning others of the bug in the program and the possible loss of emails that may result, however in the grand scheme of things, I think this is still a very worthwhile few hours invested in taking a physical, local backup of your gmail or google apps emails. Faced with a choice between restoring a backup that may have partial data loss, compared to starting again from scratch, I know which one I would choose! Are you aware of any alternatives that are more reliable?
Hugh Williams
» Post Comment
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