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i dont like pop based backup options. i prefer doing an imap sync to local for which offlineimap has been doing an excellent job for me:

http://software.complete.org/software/projects/show/offlinei...

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What are the specific advantages?

if i delete mail from gmail, it gets reflected in local copy. it has the negative, of if i lose everything from gmail and run a backup, it gets deleted from the local. but, i protect against that by having local backups. so my backups of local machine reflect the state of the gmail through time without growing and growing.

Some other nice things:

• Offlineimap uses maildir format, used by some IMAP servers like Dovecot. So if Google ever goes evil and locks you out, you can just use your own server instead.

• Theoretically you can use Offlineimap to reproduce exactly all your mail and folders/labels onto another IMAP server. This would be pretty useful for migration, but I've never actually tried it.

maildir works very well with mutt as well and because of the 2 way sync nature of offlineimap, you can work offline with all of your mail ( something that the gmail offline doesn't allow me, it only makes some available. ).

yes, i am a big offlineimap fan.

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