Google Docs is a great online service but there are good reasons for keeping copies of your work on a computer. It means you can access them if you are not connected to the internet and it keeps them safe if there were to be any problems with the Google Docs service.

Gdocbackup is a utility that does this for you, is easy to use and gives you the choice of what format to save them in.

There's no requirement to save your password if you're worried about security, though this is possible. The backup folder must be set by hand as well.

The utility defaults to saving the documents, spreadsheets and presentations in the Microsoft Office formats. This makes sense from a compatibility point of view and it is possible to change the file format to the Openoffice formats among others.

The interface is a little basic but it does show the progress of the backup and a list of the files that have been saved. Hopefully this will be improved in future versions.

Even so, the interface doesn't stop this from being a very useful utility. If you want to keep a local copy of your Google Docs, and you should, this is the easiest way to do it.