You’ve mentioned backing up GMail to somewhere on your own computer; how do you do that?
Of all the current free email services, GMail is my favorite. I know I’ve railed against free email services as your only email service, but they definitely have their place. And GMail is the service I recommend.
In part, I recommend it because I can answer this question. GMail is easy to backup.
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In a nutshell, the way to backup GMail to your own machine is to use a “traditional” email client, like Outlook, Thunderbird, or others, and configure them to use GMail’s POP3 access to download your mail.
Now, depending on how you use GMail there are a couple of approaches to doing this.
First let’s set you up with POP3 access.
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POP3 is the way traditional email programs that run on your PC get your email from your ISP. One of the reasons I recommend GMail is that they support using POP3 to download mail from your GMail account.
I recommend Thunderbird, free, good, reliable and feature rich email program. Perhaps most importantly for our backup purposes, your email in Thunderbird is stored as text files.
Once you have an email program, GMail’s online help has instructions for configuring POP3 access in many popular email programs. Here are instructions for configuring Thunderbird.
Once configured, when you go do download or “check for new mail” using your email program you’ll get your GMail. The first time it could be a lot, depending on how long you’ve been using GMail and how much email you have.
Do that periodically, and the mail that’s store on your machine is your backup should you ever lose anything from GMail. You might even consider backing up those files along with your regular PC backups.
And of course, you could consider simply using your email program instead of the GMail web interface, since you now have that as an option.
If at any time you want to re-download all the mail in your GMail account, you can. GMail help includes instructions to backup all mail by forcing GMail to download all email, even that which might have been downloaded before. That’s a good way to create a snapshot at any point in time.
If you`re using Hotmail and Thunderbird, a useful extension is (strangely enough) WebMail.
http://webmail.mozdev.org/
Although Hotmail is not supposed to be a POP service, this extension works fine and downloads my Hotmail.co.uk and Yahoo.co.uk accounts to Thunderbird seamlessly. Also claims to be able to deal with five other web mail domains as well, but I can`t vouch for those!
Thunderbird 2 makes it even easier to download GMail messages since they have a special option for setting up Google Mail access. I think all you need to give Thunderbird now is your username and password and Thunderbird handles all the server settings and port settings for you. (Although since I upgraded from Thunderbird 1.5 where I already have Gmail setup I haven’t actually setup a Google Mail account on Thunderbirds 2 yet – I have seen the new option)
Eli
I backup my Gmail account in a different, yet easier method. I created another email account (yahoo), and using the Gmail rules, all incoming GMail emails are automatically forwarded to the yahoo email account. I also use this backup method for files I want to keep. I email the file to Gmail, which automatically forwards to yahoo. I then have the file located on three different places: my own PC, Gmail & Yahoo. I do not use this method for proprietary files.
Not sure what it does you’re trying to show? But I want to access a gmail account which I forgot password. Will your method work? and how? thanks
What does this backup backup? Only mails, that are in inbox? What about mails that are in send folder?!? Or mails that are in archive folder? Drafts?
I am frustrated with the fact that I only have list of e-mails that I have send out in my inbox not recieved ones. It is always me, someone. I want to see recieved e-mails not just the one I have send out. could you please help.
We have developed a simple tool ( http://www.gmail-backup.com/ ) to back up your emails from Gmail. It is written in Python but it is compiled into an EXE file for windows. As a result, you do not have to install anything. It is still only command line tool but very soon it will have GUI. You can also use it for migration or restoration of your Gmail Account. We hape that very soon it will be “one click solution”. ;-)
can i read my inbox even if im offline?
Having been a fan of firefox and seen you post, I was greatly encouraged and used Thunderbird2.0 to backup my gmail. My gmail is fairly large (2GB) and, in more than 1 day, I downloaded 60% of it, and the program crashed. I tried to resume the backup, the program re-started by repeating the download right from the first email again. Tried all kinds of solutions suggested in the internet including uninstalling and wipe the program from the system and re-installing. It kept making the mistake as far as the program is interrupted while downloading the emails from gmail. After wasting 2 days, I gave up and used outlook from Microsoft, which worked perfectly. Although I really do not like Microsoft, I could not afford to waste time to just playing around with a problematic software.
You could also just set up Thunderbird to check Gmail through IMAP. It keeps it synced for you and I have had no problems with it.
You could also back it up using Gmail Backup.
Here is a quick how-to:
http://geekai.com/backup-your-gmail-with-gmail-backup/
How do I back up archived files; i.e., 500+ saved recipes that I’ve g-mailed to myself?
I found this http://www.gmailkeeper.com what interests me is that it can schedule the backup jobs and supports multiple gmail accounts.
regarding gmail, it is my understanding that gmail does not have a “folder” system, therefore if you transfer all of your hotmail email……you will get a very long list of email and not individual folders…..havent looked at this recently, but this was my last understanding.
You can get a free one-time Gmail backup from http://backupmymail.com
for those who couldn’t re-download, do this:
Enable POP for all mail in the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ section of your Gmail settings
then re-run email pop3 download.
I also wrote a tutorial on how to backup Gmail using Mozilla Thunderbird:
http://www.mattsilverman.com/2009/05/backup-gmail-using-mozilla-thunderbird.html
Enjoy,
Matt
I use a free back up email program called MailStore. I use it to back up Hotmail, Thunderbird, etc. The site is : mailstore.com to check it out.
thunderbird 3 does everything possible automatic :)
Yahoo’s mail, Flickr and IM interface are superior to the Google counterparts. Especially the tabbed interface in Mail Plus that allows you to switch between mails without closing them. In addition Gmail makes e-mails spontaneously disappear (it is all over the web, do a Google search). When you do business you do not want these kinds of things to happen. Yahoo’s mail data-integrity is more reliable than Gmail’s.
thegmailbackup.com
A new best service
gmail is still the best by far. all my site emails are directed to my gmail for reading and pricessing and reply.
with google talk and the simplest interface no email service comes close and not to mention the lightning speed.
What I don’t understand is, if you delete an email on your gmail, wont it also delete that same email on Thunderbird? So how does that backup your gmail emails?
22-Apr-2010
I already use thunderbird to access my gmail through IMAP. But I would also like to use this technique to backup gmail through POP3. It doesn’t seem that Thunderbird will let me — it keeps saying that I already have an email account set up for this email address, my IMAP one, and it won’t let me create another one for POP. Can I still use your POP method for backup?
thanks
ok good tip about backing up your email.
HOWEVER i used Thunderbird and i can see that it only downloaded last years mail .
so i did it on 15 may and the first mail I have on my disk is the one of 7may 2009…but i started using Gmail in 2006 all that mail still is at google’s and not in my thunderbird
Question ? how do I download the earlier mail?
I cannot find any settings or options who forces thunderbird to go back at the very beginning…
Outlook has the same preset limit…
thnkzzzzzz ur article was really helpful!!!!!!!!
is there a way of bcking up gmail to a fingernail file?
(pkiss)
(please keep it stupid simple) :)
22-Nov-2010
How do you go about backing up your sent mail?
Thank you for the directions, I found this to be quite helpful and to the point. My Gmail account is a 97% full and I don’t want to buy more space, I would rather back it up, now I know an easy way. I in fact do use gmail as my primary account, I find it better and more reliable than any other e-mail service I have used. I travel internationally and gmail seems to have fast connectivity no matter what country I am in, and what device I am using to access it.
Thanks again.
thegmailbackup.com
is the perfect solution for 1 click backup
thanks
Leo, why POP and not IMAP? I installed Thunderbird and downloaded all my gmail (lots!), but I’m beginning to understand that if I delete it in gmail, it doesn’t delete it in POP, so the file in Thunderbird (I suppose) grows ever larger? Or is the idea that you delete it in TB as well? Have you ever used Gmail Backup or MailStore to backup gmail?
10-Jun-2011
I need some urgent help – How can I backup the chats and mails from and to a particular mail ID in my gmail account? I need to keep a copy in some CD/ hard disk and delete these chats/ mails from gmail once i have a backup. Please suggest the easiest and safest way possible.
If we backup, and if we create another account (with different name), will we be able to import the old email back?
Thanks!Thanks
@Willing
One way to export emails from one account to another is to set up an email program to manage both accounts via IMAP. You can then move or copy the emails from the Inbox of the old account to the Inbox of the new account
What is IMAP? And How Can it Help Me Manage My Email?
in which archiver i can archive 27gb Email form my gmail account. Thunderbird support 15gb archive eamil. please suggest me any good archiver.
22-Nov-2012