Use your HUGE Gmail account to store important files

Because computers became part of our life and the work undertaken on these machines has become more and more valuable we search for the best backup solutions to avoid losing important files. There are a lot of options when we are talking about backup: backup on optical disks (CDs, DVDs), backup on hard disks, network backups, etc. But what about saving you important data into you mailbox? Google is one of the free email providers that offered >1Gb of space for mail storage.

The huge amount of disk space for your emails can be very useful or useless in some cases (there are people who don't manage to take advantage of the whole mail quota, because they simply do not use email so intense). Now, not only that Google - through his mail service (Gmail) offered more than 1GB mail storage - but now it outran the 2 Gb boundary, heading towards 3Gb storage space. How can we lucratively use that space? Easy! Use it to backup important files. You save your files and place them on a secure environment. A CD, a DVD or a HDD can broke down or be lost while a Gmail account is safer and reliable.

You may ask yourself how to place all the data on your email account because the operation is theoretically difficult and slow. You won't use the mail interface itself to do the job, or other email to send the data to the Gmail account! I will show you some small applications that will help you do these tasks in a comfortable and shorter time.

Backup your important files using gSpace Firefox extension

gSpace is a Firefox extension that will help you transform your Gmail account into a FTP one. To use it, it is necessary to install the Mozilla Firefox web browser which can be found here. Then go to gSpace page on Softpedia and download the extension. After you have successfully installed Firefox, click File, Open, browse for the extension and open it. You will be asked to install it. Click install and then restart the browser for the changes to take effect. To access the application, in the Firefox browser click Tools and then gSpace.

The extension will display an interface similar with a FTP client. In the left panel is your computer and on the right one there is the Gmail account, acting like a ftp drive or a remote computer. At the gmail ID field add your user id and provide the password for it. Then click login. If the login is successful you will notice e message in the right panel displaying "Congrats - successfully logged in!"

Now you are connected and you can start uploading files on your account. Note that 14 Mb is the limit upload for each file. To upload a file, select it from the left menu and click the arrow pointing towards the right panel.

You will be informed about the progress status and if it is completed of failed. You are also informed about the default space available and about the remaining space. Your files will appear like mails with attachments. For better results, create a backup folder on your mail account to store the files and avoid accidental erasure.


This is how your files will look like into your Gmail account:


Backup to email, a fast alternative to send files to you mail account

Backup to email is a simple yet convincing application that will integrate itself in the windows shell and will permit to easy upload files to a provided mail account. It is easier to use it compared with gSpace, because it does not require additional software and it works from the file menu. Just right click on the file you want to upload and select Backup to Email. Before using it, you will be asked to provide the mail account and the relating password. Fast and easy!