Webmail Vendor Lock-In
Gmail needs an export. I’ve realized this when trying to move away from Hotmail, and am finding that at the very least, it’s a pain to get the mail I want out. The 1GB limit that Gmail gives is great, but by the time I’ve stored up 1GB of email it would be that much MORE of a pain to get away from Gmail.
Thinking more on this, I was moved to send my thoughts to Google and was able to find this tidbit about Google’s plans on supporting import and export.
Also, their auto-replier fired back with this as well. Leave it to Google to understand my questions and send an automated response 30 seconds later with an acceptable degree of relevance.
Hello,
Thank you for your suggestion — we are forwarding it to the appropriate
team. We certainly appreciate hearing from Gmail users and encourage you
to continue to let us know how we can improve the Gmail experience.You might be interested to hear that we are working on many upcoming
features:- Automatic forwarding of your email to another account
- Plain HTML version of Gmail
- Import/export ContactsWe hope you enjoy Google’s approach to email.
Sincerely,
The Gmail Team
Lastly, I have six invitations to give away. The first six people to post comments to this topic will receive them.
Michael Gall Said,
June 21, 2004 @ 11:21 pm
G’day, got your email on the wordpress mailing list, just wondering if you could hook me up. Cheers. :)
Ana Said,
June 21, 2004 @ 11:30 pm
Hello. Thanks for the Gmail invitation!
Otto Kitsinger Said,
June 21, 2004 @ 11:41 pm
Hiya, would love one. And thanks for the tip in the next thread about the RSS reader for Firefox; I have to check that out too. Mine own site has feeds and I have no idea how they work or what people see; I need to change that.
Florian Said,
June 22, 2004 @ 7:26 am
As everybody now has one of these gmail accounts I also may have to give it a try.
Owen Said,
June 22, 2004 @ 9:08 am
Hi there… I’m looking for a Gmail invite. Found your site via the WordPress hacker mailing list. Thanks!
Joel Said,
June 22, 2004 @ 12:01 pm
Hi, wow.. I’d love love to try out Gmail. I’ve heard such great things about. Any invites left?
David Carrington Said,
June 22, 2004 @ 1:06 pm
With all this hype going around about gmail, I’d certainly like to check it out :)
Tor Said,
June 22, 2004 @ 1:35 pm
Sorry David, Joel got my last invite. Hope y’all enjoy your Gmail accounts.
Tor Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 11:25 am
I’ve got more invites, first five after this post will receive them.
Best,
~Tor
steve minutillo Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 11:33 am
I’ll take one!
tai Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 11:34 am
I found your post on wp-hacks ML and I would appreciate one, thanks.
Luca Lizzeri Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 11:51 am
I saw your post on wp-hacks! I’d take one invite too …
David Carrington Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 1:06 pm
Second time lucky? I’d like a gmail account.
Tor Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 1:14 pm
You were the first of the new batch David to get an invite. :) That’s why there were only 5 announced slots.
Two left!
Daniel Burke Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 1:40 pm
Hey, i got your invite through the wp list, would love a gmail acc.
Eric Heupel Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 3:01 pm
Saw the announce on wp-hacker list, would love to get in on gmail.
Tor Said,
June 23, 2004 @ 3:26 pm
This round of invites is gone. Thanks for stopping by everyone. :)
CXI Said,
September 18, 2004 @ 1:02 am
I dunno if it’s any help, but I’ve written a gmail->csv contact exporter bookmarklet (link here). I’ll admit I’ve mainly used it to mass-transfer contacts to and from my friends, but it should work okay for other programs supporting CSV. I suppose it won’t be all that useful when Google adds the same functionality (hopefully soon), but it’s something.
PS. That google link seems to be dead now. Suspicious, eh?
Tor Said,
September 23, 2004 @ 9:11 pm
The contact thing is pretty interesting, thought I don’t think I’ll be using it much, especially if I can’t import my mail yet. As for the link going missing… I wish a Google cache would work.