As already reported quite a bit in the tech press, a number of users of Microsoft’s Hotmail service have discovered that all their stored messages are now gone.

Usually storing your email in the clouds seems like the best solution instead of trying to manage it yourself.  As we have seen however, having data in the cloud does not always guarantee it’s safety.

Like backing up other types of data it is best to have the data in at least two and preferably three locations.  For those that do not use a dedicated email client like Outlook or Thunderbird, email backup can be a problem.  Fortunately there are some steps can be done to backup your web based email incase of a problem.

Using an email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird is one way to keep a copy of your email on your local machine.  This allows you to read your email even if your web based email is not available. You can still access your email through a web browser but now you have a copy on your hard drive that can be backed up.  I’ve been using this method for quite a few years for my email accounts.

As I created other email accounts for other reasons I used rules within Outlook to make a copy of those other email accounts automatically. In this way I don’t have to think about doing it it’s just done behind the scenes.

There are other email programs that can be downloaded for free including http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/ and the new Windows Live Mail 2011.