lifehacker.com — Instead, today we'll set up a nightly automated Gmail backup using the command line program fetchmail, which will go out, grab your newest messages, save 'em to your hard drive and exit, all while you sleep soundly in the knowledge that you've got an offline copy of your important email.
Feb 9, 2007 View in Crawl 4
nixrFeb 10, 2007
I guess this tool is kinda neat but it's really no different than, as has been mentioned, using a POP client and setting GMail to keep a copy on the server. You can set a POP client to fetch mail at any interval you choose so this tool isn't really all that necessary in my opinion. To each his own I suppose.
rebotfcFeb 10, 2007
thanks for the tip, tpink.
jonforthewinFeb 10, 2007
And who's _the_ maintaner for Fetchmail? Eric S. Raymond himself. w00t
doubtfulsalmonFeb 10, 2007
Ditto, I've been running nightly backups on all my gmail accounts for ages. It serves two porpoises: first, a backup, second, by removing from the server it's skipping neatly around that crazy american legal loophole that allows google access to the contents of the emails after 90 days if I've left them up there.
doubtfulsalmonFeb 10, 2007
If you don't see a need for it, then you probably don't need it. I've been using fetchmail to harvest email from a whole bunch of gmail accounts, and assorted accounts elsewhere, and deliver them into a single email account on my local server at home. Consolidation, big time! I could go through the tedious process of logging in to each account every day, or I can let fetchmail collect all of my mail, and deliver it all to one easy-to-manage place.It works great for me. This is incredibly useful information.
jdongFeb 10, 2007
@DoubtfulSalmon: Dude! Sweet! Your e-mail serves two cute little dolphin-like animals!
kuallaFeb 10, 2007
What I have being wondering for a while is how does Google store their email? If one of their email servers catches fire or a natural disaster occurs, is there a second site with backups?
kylogFeb 10, 2007
DoubtfulSalmon: say more about this 90 day loophole. News to me, but I fear Big Brother Google.
goodolboyktAug 10, 2008
Wow works great! and less CPU intensive than using POP e-mail client like Thunderbird
cvhsoftwaresJun 4, 2010
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