This news underscores the importance of backing up your life in the cloud, even on “reliable” networks like Google. We’ve shown you how to back up your Facebook data and your Twitter history and today, we have two quick tips on backing up your Gmail account.
One of the best ways to back up your Gmail account is BackUpMyMail which is a paid service of $19.95 per year that automatically backs up your entire account, you don’t have to do anything at all.
Another simple method is to forward all emails to a secondary account. This can be done by clicking the gear at the top right in your Gmail, selecting “Mail Settings” then “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” and at the very top “Add a forwarding address” which you’ll send to a backup Gmail (I suggest setting up a second Gmail account with the email address “youremailBACKUP@gmail.com” with the same password so it’s easy to remember when you’re panicked that Google erased everything).
This doesn’t solve the problem however if all of Gmail is wiped out overnight, so paying for backup if Gmail is your primary business email address is smart. Some people manually back up quarterly, monthly or if compulsive, weekly to a CD so they have a physical copy given that Realtors must adhere to local laws about length of maintaining a copy of all client communications.
UPDATE: Backupify is offering a free year of service in light of the Gmail glitch.
AGbeat is not affiliated with any of the aforementioned companies.
