I assume you stopped using outlook or thunderbird when you began using gmail in 2004? :P ~8000 messages, couple of gigabytes, takes about as long to search as

I assume you stopped using outlook or thunderbird when you began using gmail in 2004? :P ~8000 messages, couple of gigabytes, takes about as long to search as gmail takes to reload the page in thunderbird for me (and I can customize my search endlessly), this on an old machine that I bought in january of 2008 (searched for the order confirmation ;)). gmail is great, for a web service, but you shouldn't rely on google having backups and you should indulge yourself with a native client, keep gmail, or any other service, for web access.