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Back That Gmail Up

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Re: Back That Gmail Up

#41

Post by chrishenn »

msy wrote: post #21
there wrote: post #12

I'm not leery of Google shuttering its Gmail service, but I can imagine a scenario where they cut off my access to Gmail and I have no way to plead my case to the search behemoth. I am baffled at how people continue using such a service for something as important as e-mail in 2012, while still being fully aware that their access can be completely cut off at random with no reason or recourse. Does everyone just assume…

I couldn't agree more. Email is essentially the skeleton key to all your other accounts thanks to email reset, even if you use your own domain and don't risk the virtual armageddon of losing both all your mail and your address forever you still risk losing all your mail. Even worse, if your account is hacked you have no effective recourse whatsoever and someone will have access to all your accounts, contacts and emai…

If you use Google Apps with your own domain and make backups of your mail, then you have a very small chance of losing your address and your mail.

People hate on Google Apps, but you don't give up control if you follow both these steps (which is easy.)

I also don't see any reason why another email provider won't do what people are afraid Google will do.

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#42

Post by icebraining »

jarofgreen wrote: post #37

I like it. Just got it going. Specifically I like that it stores all your emails as plain text, one file per email, so you can easily use/write other tools to search/browse your backups if you need to. Maybe someone already has? (Well, it stores the raw email contents as text. Most emails have a text/plain bit but not all, so you can almost just use grep.)

Plain text one file per email is the standard Maildir[1] format. It's extremely well supported by email programs and utilities.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#43

Post by jarofgreen »

icebraining wrote: post #42
jarofgreen wrote: post #37

I like it. Just got it going. Specifically I like that it stores all your emails as plain text, one file per email, so you can easily use/write other tools to search/browse your backups if you need to. Maybe someone already has? (Well, it stores the raw email contents as text. Most emails have a text/plain bit but not all, so you can almost just use grep.)

Plain text one file per email is the standard Maildir[1] format. It's extremely well supported by email programs and utilities. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir

BaGoMa puts your email in folders based on the first 2 characters of the file name.

eg 00/00a87... 00/00aa8... 0b/0b0a9...

So you'd have to do some folder shuffling before dumping the data into a Maildir server filesystem but that's not to hard.

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#44

Post by snowwrestler »

there wrote: post #12

I'm not leery of Google shuttering its Gmail service, but I can imagine a scenario where they cut off my access to Gmail and I have no way to plead my case to the search behemoth. I am baffled at how people continue using such a service for something as important as e-mail in 2012, while still being fully aware that their access can be completely cut off at random with no reason or recourse. Does everyone just assume…

I could die while driving--it happens tens of thousands of times per year--but I still drive places because it is much more convenient than the alternatives.

Gmail is very convenient, so I use it despite the very small risk that it will backfire on me.

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#45

Post by snowwrestler »

there wrote: post #22
Tooluka wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so important about email in 2012? Tell your contacts your new email, and change restore email option at web resources. Sure, it is a bit uncomfortable and will take 1-2 days to finish, but probability of this scenario is very low.

It's also the backdoor to nearly every online account you have, by way of 'reset password' links.

That would be a problem if your Gmail was hacked.

The GP is talking about Google themselves blocking access. I'm not worried that Google will reset my passwords in other accounts.

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#46

Post by frou_dh »

johnbrayton wrote: post #6

My Mac app, CloudPull, does something similar. CloudPull backs up Google Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Drive (formery Docs) and Reader to your Mac. http://www.goldenhillsoftware.com/ CloudPull stores your password securely in the Mac OS X keychain.

Nice! That looks very well executed. Personally I'm glad to see you explicitly mention that it's read-only. Separation of concerns and all that.

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#48

Post by littletables »

there wrote: post #12

I'm not leery of Google shuttering its Gmail service, but I can imagine a scenario where they cut off my access to Gmail and I have no way to plead my case to the search behemoth. I am baffled at how people continue using such a service for something as important as e-mail in 2012, while still being fully aware that their access can be completely cut off at random with no reason or recourse. Does everyone just assume…

> I am baffled at how people continue using such a service for something as important as e-mail in 2012, while still being fully aware that their access can be completely cut off at random with no reason or recourse.

I am consistently baffled that people with higher than average technical skills assume that everyone is at their level.

Many people worry about Gmail/Google cutting them off with no/ or little recourse. The mistake in your assumption that I'm pointing out as an example is that most people don't know how to run their own mail.

So, no: I don't think everyone is assuming it won't happen to them. They just don't know what to do, and that's no reason to cast Gmail users as afflicted with the 'psychological law of self exception' (or willfully ignorant).

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#49

Post by Groxx »

there wrote: post #12

I'm not leery of Google shuttering its Gmail service, but I can imagine a scenario where they cut off my access to Gmail and I have no way to plead my case to the search behemoth. I am baffled at how people continue using such a service for something as important as e-mail in 2012, while still being fully aware that their access can be completely cut off at random with no reason or recourse. Does everyone just assume…

Because domains never get seized, of course. Nor are there ever shenanigans with transferring between hosts.

I'd bet that Gmail has better uptime and less chance of loss than owning your own domain, for most cases.

Re: Back That Gmail Up

#50

Post by manveru »

Rudism wrote: post #2

Another good one is http://gmvault.org . I used this just recently to backup and transfer all of my Google Apps emails to a separate gmail account since I'm transferring my apps domain to a different provider. Going just off of what the article says about BaGoMa, Gmvault seems to be comparable in features.

Been trying to get gmvault to do at least one successful run since it showed up on HN maybe a week or so ago. It always stops somewhere at mails from 2008 with no error message, just dies. Guess I'll wait until it's a bit more mature. I only have 6GB of mails too.
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