4 ways and I’m ’em doing all:
- Mozilla Thunderbird for Offline Use (syncs your main gmail account)
- Gmail Backup
- Trueswitch/hotmail – you need to create a live.com or hotmail.com email account first
- Create a separate backup Gmail account (enable POP and get email from the main account)
After everything, I will delete a custom tag/folder Archive from my main gmail account.
Useful links for detailed instructions and other options but I will stick with the above for simplicity’s sake: