Does pulling email from gmail download the spam folder also?
I want to user mozzila's email client to backup my gmail emails.
If you are talking about POP email, it will only download messages from your Gmail Inbox (and Sent Items).
If you used IMAP instead, and enabled the Advanced IMAP in the Labs section then you could choose not to download the spam folder.
for using Tbird with gmail, best to use these addons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/6381 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/1339 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307 use all 3 for the full gmail experience in TTbird
also under settings in gmail, you can further play with imap settings, and there's a lab feature to let you customize it even more
To directly answer your question, no - Gmail will only download items in your inbox over POP. I personally have never seen it download items in your sent - but I never used the web interface to send email, so all my sent items would be in my sent items folder.