Google Scared Its Gmail Users with a "Blackout", But Is There A Solution? No There's THREE!

Yesterday, Google's famous webmail app, Gmail, lost some users data. Some 150,000 that is! According to Mashable:

About 150,000 Gmail account holders woke up to a nightmare this morning, with all their e-mail, attachments and Google Chat logs gone. What happened? 

Google explains that “less than 0.08%” of all Gmail users were affected by the bug, which completely reset accounts, even down to the detail offering a welcome message to those users when they first logged on today. They, and especially visitors to the Gmail Help Forum, were not amused.

No biggy right? There are a ton of Gmail users. True, there are. But this is a huge problem Google.  Unfortunately there isn't a way to back up Gmail.

Excuse me one second. Say what?

There is?

I never heard about that!

I've just received some unbelievable news! According to my imaginary tech-geek friend, there is a way to backup Gmail. Hold on again.

Oh really?

Actually... there are two ways to!

One option is using Gmail Backup.

Mashable describes it well:  

This is a free application for Mac, PC and Linux called Gmail Backup. I gave it a try and it’s easy to use. After a quick download, you just give it your credentials and it begins downloading all your e-mails, backing them up securely no matter what Google decides to do.

The other option is Backupify. If you haven't heard of it, it's a real treat. Not only does it backup Gmail, but so many others, including Facebook profile and pages, Twitter, Google Calendar & Docs, Zoho, Blogger, Flickr, Picasa and LinkedIn.

But that's only scratching the surface. Yesterday's Gmail mishap motivated Backupify to offer its Pro 100 service free (20 GB of storage) for a whole year with the promo code... wait for it... it's coming... savegmail. (Remember, if copying and pasting this, to not copy the period) There is a catch though. It's for today only! It started yesterday and goes through today and there isn't a limit.

I would like to point out that when I went to get this deal, it didn't show up, only the Pro 500 package did. So I sent a tweet to them explaining it wouldn't let me and they told me to email them my email registered with that account and the promo code and they would apply it right to my account... and they did! So thank you Backupify and thank you readers for reading. I hope this helped some!

There is actually another way to backup your webmail accounts, whether you are a Gmail user or Hotmail user. Lifehacker provided a simple instruction guide:

First up, though, sign up and secure a Hotmail account, get a good password, and sign into it. Then head to TrueSwitch, enter your Gmail user/pass info, then your new Hotmail login, and choose what you want Hotmail/Windows Live to copy over. As with all the other options, you'll likely have to wait a while, but once all your data has arrived, you'll get an email from Hotmail, letting you know you're all set.

(originally read on Mashable and Lifehacker)