Make a Local Backup Of Your Gmail Account

Web-based e-mail services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Mail are great for their access-anywhere capabilities.

The ease and simplicity of checking your mail in a browser have caused many of us to ditch the desktop client in favor of a web-based interface. It's one less application to have running and, in case of Google's Gmail, the search capabilities and conversation threading blow desktop apps out of the water.

However, using a service like Gmail means you don't have a local backup of your e-mail like you would get if you were using a desktop client. Naturally, that doesn't mean you can't store backups of your e-mail on your local machine. It requires a bit of work to set up, but once you do, you'll be able to enjoy the goodness of Gmail's web interface worry-free.