Long title, I know. Here’s how I did it…
sudo apt-get install fetchmail postfix
cd ~
vim .fetchmailrc
Add the following to the file (replacing everything in CAPS appropriately):
poll pop.gmail.com with proto POP3 and options no dns
user 'YOUR_GMAIL_ADDRESS' there with password 'YOUR_PASSWORD' is 'YOUR_UBUNTU_USERNAME' here
options ssl
Now:
chmod 710 .fetchmailrc
sudo vim /etc/crontab
Add the following to your crontab file:
10 7 * * 1 YOUR_UBUNTU_USERNAME fetchmail -k
This will run fetchmail every Sunday and grab your email. It seems either fetchmail or gmail limits each connect to something around 400-500 messages, so to get started, you can run fetchmail -k a few dozen times to download all your mail, then let crontab do the rest on a weekly basis.
Your mail is downloaded to a single mbox file in /var/spool/mail/YOUR_UBUNTU_USERNAME. Being a single file makes it nice for backing up, moving, etc. I hear Thunderbird can easily read the file, and I think Apple’s Mail.app can as well.
Just makes you feel good having all your mail backed up, now doesn’t it?