If the Gmail scare earlier this week has you thinking about backing up your Gmail or other web-based email account, we’re here to help. Read on to learn how to backup your web-based email using open source email application Thunderbird.

In case you missed it, earlier this week Gmail suffered an unusual series of glitches that led to 0.02% of Gmail users finding their inboxes totally empty. The good news is that the glitch was fixed and no actual data was lost (they restored the missing email from tape backups that were unaffected by the issue). While that’s wonderful nobody lost any important emails it’s also very unsettling. Not every “Oops, we lost your data!” scenario ends so well. Today we’re going to walk you through backing up your email using the free and robust open-source application Thunderbird.