GmailFS

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GMailFS should not be confused with GoogleFS, the filesystem created by Google for use in heavyweight servers hard storage, adjusted for performance and large-file handling features.

GmailFS is a virtual filesystem developed by Richard Jones which allows users to mount and use their Gmail email account's storage as a local disk drive. GmailFS is written for Linux, but Windows ports do exist.

It works by building a filesystem with the FUSE kernel module (which allows filesystems to be managed by the user—not just the kernel), and manages communication with Gmail through a special purpose Python library called libgmail. The actual GmailFS is implemented in Python.

Using GmailFS will provide the user with over two and a half (soon to be three) gigabytes of online storage. The speed of this filesystem is limited by the speed of the user's Internet connection, and the upload/download speed of the Gmail server. Files can be any size, and are stored as (segmented) attachments.

Note that Gmail's terms of use impose no restrictions that would make use of GmailFS a direct violation of the Service agreement. However, they also state that "Google also reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue the Service with or without notice at any time and without any liability to you" and "Google reserves the right to refuse service to anyone at any time without notice for any reason", so that Google would be well within its right to disable accounts used for GmailFS at any time and without warning; Google can and has suspended accounts for the sort of excess activity GmailFS generates. Consequently GmailFS should not be considered reliable for backup purposes. Furthermore, the "Program Policies" prohibit the user to "Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service" which is arguably violated by use of GmailFS, which, after all, "reformats" documents transferred via HTTP ("web pages") into data accessible via FUSE.

Some users of GmailFS use filesystem-level encryption to protect the information they store with it.

[edit] See also

• FUSE for virtual filesystems
• Gmail
• Gmail Drive
• PhpGmailDrive
• Vombato mail drive

[edit] External links

• GmailFS official site
• GMail Drive - a similar virtual filesystem for Windows
• Gmail
• FUSE homepage
• libgmail homepage
• gDisk for Mac OS X