KLS Mail Backup is a simple tool which backs up all the key settings for a host of applications: IncrediMail, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, Outlook Express, Pocomail, Postbox, SeaMonkey, The Bat!, Windows Live Mail and Windows Mail.

The program is fairly simple to use, as there's no need to specify particular files and folders. If you want to protect your Firefox installation, say, you just select "Mozilla Firefox" in the list, then choose exactly what you'd like to back up from a list: "General Settings", "Bookmarks", "Extensions", "Certificates", "Saved Passwords", "Saved Forms", "Cookies", "History" and "Other Files".

Next, you're able to configure your backup job by tweaking a variety of settings. You can choose the backup destination, for instance (local or network drives), the backup type (full, or incremental) compression level and more.

When you're ready you can then run that backup at any time with a click. And if disaster strikes at some point then recovery is just as easy, with the program able to restore any or all of your archive.

There are obvious limitations here. You can't add custom files or folders to the backup, for instance; you can't burn backups to disc, or save them online; there's no scheduler to run automatically.

KLS Mail Backup is reasonable for a free tool, though, and if you like the technology then you can always upgrade to KLS Backup 2011, which adds all these features and many more (back up from local, network, FTP and WebDAV servers, back up to the cloud, supports more compression formats, encrypt your archives, and more). Prices start at $39.95 and you can find out more on the KirySoft site.