How to Backup Your Gmail

Saturday, April 10, 2010

By Amy Kniss, eHow Contributing Writer

Gmail users rely on the ease and accessibility of the widely used email service - a service what works 99.9% of the time. Perhaps its usual reliability made Gmail's 100 minute blackout in August so difficult to handle. When Gmailers around the globe confronted service failure, the loyal users loudly lamented the hardship. Imagine the insurmountable horror (or at least extreme frustration) conjured by the inability to access important content in your email, for an hour and a half! Instead of crying about unexpected downtime, protect your data by backing up your Gmail.

Following a few simple steps, you can easily backup your Gmail account and shield all the vital material in your email from service interruptions. Keep reading to learn how.

Step 1 Sign-in to your Gmail account. If you don't have a Gmail account you can open one by searching for Gmail in any search engine and following the account sign up directions.

Step 2 Select a program that saves your emails to your hard drive or other secure and accessible location (online storage site, external hard drive, etc.). This way you will have access to your email even if Google goes offline. There are a few programs you can use for this; GMail Backup and Fetchmail are two commonly used programs.

Step 3 Download the email archiving program you selected in step two. Follow the archive program's setup prompts and complete the installation process.

Step 4 Enable Gmail forwarding. To do this return to the top of your opened Gmail window and select the Settings tab, then enable forwarding by clicking the appropriate choice.

Step 5 Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP (the fourth tab from the left on the Settings page). Then select from the POP Download options to enable you to download your email.

Step 6 Decide whether Gmail must keep a copy of your emails or delete the messages after they are processed with POP and select the bubble that reflects your choice.

Step 7 Configure your POP client (if you need help with this click "Configuration Instructions" under Step 3 of the Forwarding and POP/IMAP Settings page). Save your changes by selecting "Save Changes" before exiting the page.

Source : eHow.com