Back Up Your Gmail

Take my advice and back up your gmail account up. Here is the steps I took.

1. Read Google’s Help document on POP access to your Gmail account.
   
2. Configure an account on your mail client for your gmail account. - IMPORTANT- Build a separate account. If you’re using Outlook, make sure this is a standalone PST file. If you’re using mail.app or Thunderbird, make sure this is a standalone account.
   
3. Do the sync between gmail and your client. NOTE: This will probably take a while. If you’ve got a fairly healthy gmail account with lots of archived mail, you will be at this step for hours. So, disable your computer’s sleep setting, but enable the screensaver if you want, and let it do its thing.
   
4. When it’s all there, turn off your mail client.
   
5. Locate your mail client’s file for the gmail mails.
   
6. Consider moving these (or making a copy) offline to a backup drive. In my case, I’m going to clip off a current update from today, and toss that entire file to my backup drive. Then, I’ll delete the account on my POP mail client, and go about my business.
   
7. Schedule your updates periodically with Google Calendar (provided THAT doesn’t encounter a whoops).