My Mum (who is in her mid 70's) has recently discovered the joy of using an iPad (I lent her an old one of mine so she could try it out). She was using my old iMac as her main computer, but really only used it for email, Facebook, browsing and online banking, all of which she can do on the iPad. So, when the iMac died a few weeks ago, she decided she'd not bother to replace it, but instead buy herself one of the newly-released iPad models. There are just a few things I want to make sure she can do before we take the plunge.

Email: Mum likes to save the emails she gets from her family overseas. I've never used iOS mail to save emails (it's all archived and backed up on my Mac) so I'm not sure the best way for her to do this so that they are both protected from server purges and backed up. Is it just a case of creating folders in iOS mail and moving the messages into them? This is what I do on Mac Mail, but I'm not sure if it works the same way on iOS.

Backup: Is it possible to periodically back up her iPad in a non-cloud fashion so that it saves her mail folders, pictures, contacts, and any other saved files? She'd need to pay for extra iCloud storage to do it online, and I'd prefer her to have the ability to do it to a device. Would a wireless external drive do the trick? And is there a specific app she'd need? I just back my iPad up to my Mac (which is, in turn, backed up to a Time Capsule and LiveDrive) so I've not tried operating one without an associated computer.

Retrieving her old files: Her iMac was backed up to an external drive using Mozy, I think. We have the drive but not sure how to retrieve her photos and whatnot since she's not replacing the computer. Any ideas?

Sorry for so many questions. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has tried any of the above and what your experience was like, and if you have any recommendations for things we should look at purchasing. Thanks!