i'm wondering what people would pay for simply an encrypted (cloud-based) gmail backup - no UI, just $X (USD)/year - and you can restore it to another account, to another email provider, or to physical media (for an additional fee)... $5/year? $10/year? I know some say this is a terrible place for pricing advice, but... any thoughts?
How do I solve this as a user? Look for reviews and stories of successful/failed user restores?
I thought of adding features like search and mail viewer. Then I realized I could just use a full email client. :P
I used to be a regular Thunderbird user on Windows because the mail file format would be open, but haven't touched desktop email since GMail.
If I were to make a choice now, I'd look at those with conversation support i.e. Postbox or Thunderbird for Windows, Sparrow or Lion's Mail.app for Mac.
Consequently, this service would be worthless without a UI for me to read my emails and see that you've successfully backed them up. Really, I think a desktop app that lets you browse a tagged archive of emails, with an integrated Gmail downloader, would be ideal.
1. Yes, probability of gmail data loss is less than probability of desktop mail data loss.
But that's for the average user. An individual desktop mail user can improve his probability to a higher level than gmail if he chooses.
2. Google may lose your data due to unexpected account termination as mentioned in the story above.
On another note congrats on making a great MVP on such little time.
p.s - "Backups for your Google Apps Domain users' Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Contacts and Google Sites data. - $3 per user per month"
It can work with a variety of mail sources, including gmail. It also builds a full text index so that you can search offline.
I have no affiliation with the company but I am using it to backup my gmail.