# Does anyone else use their Hotmail or Gmail accounts for extra storage space?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 7, 2007, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057 "2007-01-07T16:51:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/1 "2007-01-07T16:51:00Z")
Although our home machines have more than enough room on them, I have taken to storing some photo’s on my Gmail account and Hotmail account, this way if there is a catestrophic failure at home I can still call on the photo’s at any time. I’m sure there are better places to store photo’s but this is a quick and easy way where I can call on them from any puter globally.
Anyone else do this? Am I behind the times, and people have been doing this forever?
[sup]i’m suddenly feeling old. [/sup]
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/2 "2007-01-07T16:54:05Z")
There are some utilities that let you use gmail as a drive from your computer. Actually, I have been meaning to use that for backup. I think I may set it up today.
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### Author:  [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/3 "2007-01-07T17:03:56Z")
Every week, I balance my checking account and enter in new purchases/deposits into a spreadsheet. To ensure that I don’t ever lose it, I keep the most current spreadsheet on my computer and then also email it to my gmail account. So yeah, I do.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/4 "2007-01-07T17:09:53Z")
Yeah. I’ve been doing that for years. I thought that most people did something like that.
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### Author:  [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2007, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/5 "2007-01-08T00:37:58Z")
Yeah, sometimes I’ll start to write something and when I finish for the day, rather than just store it on my computer, I’ll email it to myself.
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### Author:  [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2007, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/6 "2007-01-08T00:45:16Z")
You might find [this](http://www.maximumpc.com/2006/12/how_to_hack_gma.html) useful.
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### Author:  [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2007, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/7 "2007-01-08T00:55:16Z")
I keep quite a lot of stuff in my GMail account as storage of the last resort in case something catastrophic happened to my house. Things like PINs and passwords and suchlike that I’ve always had hidden in an address book, are now hidden on google servers as well. I suppose that I trust their backup strategy, and no-one else will ever figure out the algorithm I use for storing stuff anyway.
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### Author:  [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2007, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/8 "2007-01-08T02:14:34Z")
I use Yahoo to store article manuscripts I have written. I was pretty happy about this when Beirut started getting bombed by Israel.
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### Author:  [@Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gut)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2007, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-use-their-hotmail-or-gmail-accounts-for-extra-storage-space/387057/9 "2007-01-08T02:32:54Z")
That’s a great link **x-ray vision**. Thank you.