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Would anyone buy a simple desktop app to backup gmail to the desktop?

I thought of adding features like search and mail viewer. Then I realized I could just use a full email client. :P

Which one would you use? There are a lot of flags to be configured, and whenever I set up Thunderbird, I'm unconvinced it's done a thorough job. I've also seen it re-download an entire mailbox for no apparent reason. And it doesn't actually support tags.

Yes - it's not simple to make sure you've done the right thing to make email clients backup correctly.

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.

Windows Live Mail, included free in Windows 7, does a perfect job of backing up a Gmail account, including sent mail. Configure Win Live Mail to pick up via POP3 all Gmail every couple of hours and save it (copy 1), then every night backup the Live Mail message store to a local Windows Home Server (copy 2) and to a cloud backup service (copy 3). Has worked for me for five years.

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