Google, we have a problem. About 150,000 Gmail account holders woke up to a nightmare this morning, with all their e-mail, attachments and Google Chat logs gone. What happened?

Google explains that "less than 0.08%" of all Gmail users were affected by the bug, which completely reset accounts, even down to the detail offering a welcome message to those users when they first logged on today. They, and especially visitors to the Gmail Help Forum, were not amused.

But there's good news here. The way Google is explaining it on its Apps Status Dashboard: "Google engineers are working to restore full access. Affected users may be temporarily unable to sign in while we repair their accounts."

In an earlier message, Google wrote, "For those Gmail users reporting missing messages, our engineers are working to restore them as soon as possible." So maybe this is not so bad after all. As long as Google restores the messages, all we had was a big scare. Will Google restore all the messages? We've contacted a Google spokesperson, and will let you know when we hear back.

Meanwhile, I'm going to back up all of my Gmail forthwith. But wait a minute -– how do you back up Gmail? Here:

This is a free application for Mac, PC and Linux called Gmail Backup [site is down right now]. I gave it a try and it's easy to use. After a quick download, you just give it your credentials and it begins downloading all your e-mails, backing them up securely no matter what Google decides to do. After 30 minutes, it had downloaded 2.4% of my e-mails, so this is not going to take forever. It's probably time well spent.

[via Engadget]