It's quite easy to import your mail into Gmail, and setup forwarding to automatically send new mail straight to Gmail. But once it's in, there is no particularly easy way to get it back out if you change your mind.

Gmail DOES NOT back up mail. There was a case in December 2006 where hackers completely erased 60 accounts. Waisman mail is well backed up and fault tolerant.

If you deal at all with confidential patient information, you should not use a third party email service.

If you ask anyone who uses Gmail why they use it, the answer is usually, "Because it's awesome." It's available anywhere, easy to use, fast, and free.

Your use of Gmail can be completely transparent to others. When setup properly, your outgoing mail is sent from your user@waisman.wisc.edu email address.

If you have several email addresses (wisc.edu, waisman.wisc.edu, TDS.net, etc) you can forward them all to your Gmail account. Mail can be automatically labeled with the intended account so it's easy to keep everything straight. Each Gmail account can manage 5 email accounts. Ie, you can send mail from your Waisman address, Gmail address, Wiscmail, etc from one place.

The official recommendation of the Waisman Center is to use your Waisman email account with Mozilla Thunderbird. The intention of this FAQ is simply to point out the Pros and Cons of using Gmail for academic work.