Time to try IMAP with Gmail and Thunderbird 2.0

I was using Thunderbird with some webmail extract plugin to get Gmail message offline so that I can have a offline backup in case the Internet connection is not work. That scheme worked OK so far, and even though Gmail later provides native Popmail support, I was too lazy to make any changes.

Then last night I found out that not all the mail was being downloaded offline, and I thought, this is about time to try out the new IMAP native support of Gmail.

So I downloaded the new version of Thunderbird portable, and started following the instruction provided by gmail on enabling IMAP and then setting up Thunderbird for IMAP with Gmail. It all went pretty well, and now I have offline messages on my local machine while a copy is still living inside the "All Mail" folder in Gmail online account.

Some observation:

• By default, the mail was not being downloaded to local machine. To force a downloading, I created a local inbox folder, and then drag messages from InBox of Gmail to my local inbox. Not only it downloaded all the messages to my local inbox, it also clear up the messages from my online Gmail inbox.
• In seems like sometime not all messages are downloaded in the Gmail InBox. For instance, there may be 10 messages in my inbox online, but the Thunderbird only shows 3. I have to drag and drag the 3 to my local folder first, and then a few more will show up on Gmail InBox. And so on. Eventually I will be able to retrieve all, but it take some manual work.
• I can even grab the "All Mail" folder, but I haven't dare to try copying all files to my local folder form "All Mail". Maybe I'll give it a try when I am in my office using fast company Internet line.