At my current rate of email usage, I will not exhaust the space I have on my Gmail account for approximately 28 more years.
Google has released a beta version of Google Desktop which, once installed, allows a person to search for files, emails, AOL IM chats, and a few other things. I’ve begun playing around with it and it’s snazzy… it makes finding information in old emails a lot easier and is much quicker than built in search features in Windows XP. One thing to be wary of is not to install this on a computer with sensitive information or with multiple users since the search reveals everything to a person with access to it.
For example, if this is a shared family computer, emails sent by one family member could be easily read by another without needing permission or necessarily even passwords. Also, stored chats can be interesting to look back at but snooping eyes may discover things they’re not meant to see.
Aside from privacy concerns (basically, don’t use it if you’re worried about your info getting into the wrong hands), GD is the handiest desktop search tool I’ve ever used.