Gmail on Mac Mail question

I just started using Mail v5.1. I have been using gmail for years. I have gotten into the habit of not deleting mail. I'm not sure this is a good thing anymore. I suspect Mail downloads my email messages and stores them locally. Is that correct? Do you recommend I start deleting mail messages so my local disk does not get cluttered?

THanks
Monty

To delete or not to delete is up to you. Some folks like to keep everything on their hard drive, others do not.

I delete my mail locally because GMail keeps a copy for me on their server. I have saved email on their server that goes back 5 years. As long as you don't exceed the free amount of space they allot and have not selected the option to remove mail from the server, this works best. (for me anyway)

I guess if Google goes out of business sometime, (very unlikely) I would lose my saved mail.