Gmail lacks a good email backup tool so I decided to take it upon myself to write one. "Got Your Back: Gmail Backup" a free, open source, command line backup tool for Gmail:
GYB is still in Alpha testing meaning it's not ready for general use yet but it hasn't eaten anyone's email so far. Actually, on a reasonably fast Internet connection, GYB managed to backup my entire 6.8gb Gmail mailbox in one evening.
GYB has a few features that I think are going to be pretty popular:
- GYB's goal is to backup and restore all your Gmail data. This includes full messages, labels and dates. A restore to an empty account should provide an exact copy of your email mailbox.
- The ability to use Gmail style searches like in:inbox, is:starred, "after:01/01/2011" and such. GYB uses these searches to determine what it should backup. So pretty much any search you can come up with can limit the scope of your backups.
- The ability for Google Apps Business and Education Admins to backup, restore and estimate their user's mailboxes without needing to know a password.
I'm looking for input, testing and bug reports. If you're interested, give GYB a shot. Since GYB will be an ongoing project, I've created a Google Group for it at:
ongoing discussion can happen there (but feel free to respond to this thread if that's easier).
Jay