-If you don't wanna fall victim to a corporate screw up or like Google accidentally deleting the e-mail of thousands of its users forever, then you may just wanna back up that Gmail account.
But how do you back up a website?
It turns out there's more than one approach.
I'm Jessica Dolcourt from CNET and I'll show you how.
One of the easiest ways to back up webmail is through a web-based back up tool.
There are bunch of these out there including Backupify which you can also use to archive Facebook, Twitter, and Picasa web albums.
Set up is extremely simple.
After registering for an account, you select the services you'd like to see backed up.
Just authorized your permission, then wait 2 to 3 day for your archive to appear.
The free account gives you 2 gigabytes of storage and weekly backups for up to 5 services.
For prolific e-mailers may want to upgrade to one of the subscription plans.
Another option is to save all that e-mail data on your computer's hard drive.
In Gmail settings, find the forwarding tab and click the first option to enable POP for all mail even if it's already been downloaded.
Make sure that first option in the drop down box is selected to keep your Gmail messages visible and active in your online inbox.
Don't forget to save changes.
But that's just the beginning.
POP set up is the first step.
You also have to have a desktop client like Outlook, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail to receive your Gmail messages.
Luckily, Google lists step by step instructions for configuring mail and the supported desktop apps,
so you won't be left in the dark.
This downloading technique can be free if you use a free client like Mozilla's Thunderbird, but the problem is that clients can tend to be slow to load.
And if you don't use them daily to read your mail, you'll have remember to periodically open them so your most recent messages load.
If you don't want to use a desktop inbox, there is a third method.
It's a bit of a hack because it uses a separate e-mail service to, that's right, back up your Gmail account.
Unfortunately, you can't use Gmail to back up another Gmail account, so you'll need a new or existing account somewhere else.
After configuring Gmail's POP settings, open the settings menu on that second account.
There should be an option to send and receive mail from another service.
Just enter your Gmail credentials there and you should be on your way to automatically receiving all those daily deals and love letters.
That's it for this tip.
Then keep checking back on CNET TV for even more great how-to videos.
I'm Jessica Dolcourt and that's how you back up your Gmail account
