Whether you’re changing your email address or just want to keep track of all your messages before spring cleaning, being able to transfer all your emails from Google’s servers to your hard drive is pretty handy. Natively, Gmail lets you do this with files in the MBOX format, which is an open standard for email. This is compatible with most email clients (though these often advertise their own proprietary format). Also, exporting these messages is as easy as importing them into your new client.
How do you save all the emails in your Gmail account to your hard drive?
To save all emails in your Gmail account to the hard drive:
- go to Click on this link to set your Google account. from your PC
- enter inside Personal information and privacy > Identifying your content
- in the box Download or stream your contentclick CREATE ARCHIVE
- click SELECT NOTHING
- Mail – All messages then click NEXT
- On the next screen you can customize the format of the archive – you can choose a large size to avoid splitting the archive into several files, making it easier to import your messages later
- click CREATE ARCHIVE
Depending on the sending method chosen, you will receive a download link via email or the archive directly in your favorite cloud service (Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or DropBox). The easiest way to transfer these messages to your new account is to go through an email client like Thunderbird. We will explain the detailed procedure in an upcoming quick tutorial!
