Use GMail as a Free Backup and for File Transfer

Oscar Sodani is a founder of Help2Go and owner of Help2Go Networks, an IT consulting firm in the Washington D.C. area. Oscar holds the CISSP certification as well as industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and Novell.

Google is offering free GMail accounts, each with 1 GB of email storage. Some clever programmers around the world have devised ways to use that 1 GB of free storage as if it were just another hard drive on your PC. It's easier than ever before to get a free GMail account, and have your very own backup drive, there whenever you need it. It's also useful if you want to transfer data between your home and work PC, all without floppies or thumb drives.

The first step is to get a GMail account. If you already have one, skip to the next paragraph. Otherwise, check out the GMail forums, where you can request a GMail "invitation". Snag yourself an invitation, follow the instructions in the email sent to you, and sign up with Google's GMail.

Now that you have a GMail account and password, it's time to set up the GMail drive. Download the GMail drive shell extension program from Softpedia, or directly from the author of the program.

Save the file to your desktop, and unzip (uncompress) the contents. Inside, you will find a file called Setup. Launch that file, and the GMail Drive shell extension will install itself onto your PC.

The final step is to configure the GMail Drive. Open the "My Computer" icon on your desktop. Inside, you will see an icon for GMail Drive. Right-click on it and choose Login As... Type your username and password. Then check the box that says "Auto-login". Next, click the "More" button and check the box that says "Use Secure HTTP". Choose OK.

Your GMail Drive is now ready for use! You can save your files to it, or copy files to it, just as you would with any other drive on your PC. Install GMail Drive on your home and work PCs, and you'll have a way to easily transfer files between the two sites.

Your GMail Drive is secure, but I wouldn't trust it with important personal data, such as financial files. Nevertheless, it's a great place to backup documents or photos. You can even get yourself a generic GMail account to share files with friends and family! Have fun!

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