Reading my Maildir

Having downloaded my emails from gmail (so I can have a backup), how do I read them (in case gmail goes down).

We'll I've elected to use mutt, which is a nice piece of software based on the "Worse is better" principle. As the author of mutt says:

"All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less." -me, circa 1995

Most of the conifguration for mutt can be done through the .muttrc file. Mine is like this:

set mbox_type=Maildir
set folder="~/Gmail-archive"
set spoolfile="~/Gmail-archive"
set mbox="~/Gmail-archive"
set mask="!^\\.[^.]"
set record="+.Sent"
set postponed="+.Drafts"

set reply_regexp="^(((\*\*\*SPAM\*\*\*[ \t])|[rR][eE]:[ \t])*)+"

set pager_index_lines=9
color index brightgreen  default    ~p    # To me (personal)
color index yellow       default    ~N    # New
color index yellow       default    ~O    # Old
bind  pager   <up>     previous-line
bind  pager   <down>   next-line
bind  pager   <left>   exit
bind  pager   <right>  view-attachments
bind  attach  <left>   exit
bind  attach  <right>  view-attach
bind  index   <right>  display-message
macro index   <left>   "c?"
bind  browser <right>  select-entry
bind  browser <left>   exit

The little regex bit remove the ***SPAM*** heading from messages (that is attached by our mail system to suspect Spam) if I decide to reply to it. I.e., if a mail item is incorrectly classified I don't want the send to be bothered by the fact it was labeled as Spam.