As you probably know, Gmail was down today for more than 2 hours. To make sure this doesn't affect you so much in the future, you could use a Gmail backup utility such as Gmail Backup.This app runs under Windows and Linux:
Under Linux you will need the wxPython (http://wxpython.org) packages installed. It also requires thectypesmodule, it should be included in the Python 2.5 distribution. For earlier versions of Python you can find the package in the repositories of your distribution.
and it's very easy to use. Their developers says it's a "one-click solution for doing backups of your GMail account".
To be able to use it, you must activate the IMAP access to your mailbox: open your GMail settings and under POP/IMAP tab activate this option.
Download Gmail Backup.
