How to Export Email from Gmail

Manoj Shukla
6 min readMay 7, 2021

Gmail is one of the most used email clients in the world today. According to Google, it is used by more than 1.5 billion people around the globe. It is managed by Google that makes it the most reliable email services provider. However, some users prefer other email clients and occasionally wish to shift from Gmail. It brings up the need to export email from Gmail.

In this blog, we will discuss all the methods that can help you to export all the Gmail emails to the desktop or other platforms in different file formats. The Gmail email client provides a safe and secure user interface to the users to help them communicate effectively. However, it is now lacking the flexibility and some features that the new email services are offering.

How to export email from Gmail account?

Before we move forward to the methods to export email from Gmail. Let us first understand the reasons that force users to go for the export process.

Need to Export Emails from Gmail

The Gmail emails are stored in the mailbox and are susceptible to various threats that need them to be saved. The following reasons make it necessary to migrate the Gmail emails.

  • The malware and virus attacks and intrusions on the Gmail email take away all the data from the mailboxes, making them corrupt. There is also a risk of your personal data getting into the hands of hackers.
  • Gmail only offers a cloud storage space of 15GB. It starts to have storage and lagging issues once this storage space starts to get full. The user is not able to use Gmail flawlessly once space gets jammed.
  • Internet connectivity is required to use the Gmail email services. If you require to view the emails and their attachments without an internet connection, you will not be able to do so.
  • Sometimes, it happens that you accidentally delete or remove an email that was important to you. If you export email from Gmail, you can easily recover those emails and retain your important data.

After going through the above reasons, you would be sure to export your Gmail emails. The below-mentioned method will help you in doing so.

Methods to Export Email from Gmail

  1. Using Google Takeout Feature
  2. Backing up Gmail Emails as PDF
  3. Through MS Outlook

These methods are the manual approach that can help you to migrate Gmail emails. They have been described briefly in a stepwise manner below for your execution.

  1. Using Google Takeout Feature

The Gmail Takeout feature is an inbuilt feature provided by Gmail to take the backup of the Gmail mailbox data to your system. The below-mentioned steps will help you to execute the process precisely.

  • Sign In to your Gmail account and select Manage accounts under your Profile Name.
  • Press the Data & Personalization option to view the subcategories.
  • Now, under Data & Personalization, pick Download your Data after scrolling down.
  • Then, click on Deselect all to uncheck all the marked fields.
  • After that, come down the screen to mark the Mail option to select the Mails to be exported.
  • Scroll down and press the Next Step button.
  • In the options under the delivery method, choose to Send Download link via Email.
  • Then, below File Type and Size, pick the file format.
  • Now, tick the file size as per your need and hit Create Export.
  • The Google Takeout feature will start its work to save the backup of the picked email files.
  • Once the backup is complete, an email consisting of a download link will be received in your mailbox. Click on the email and hit the Download link.

You will be able to export email from Gmail using the above method. However, it is a slow process, and it can take a huge amount of time like several hours or days.

2. Backing up Gmail Emails as PDF

This method is easy to execute and saves the particular selected email in the PDF file format. Follow the below steps to export email from Gmail.

  • Sign In to your Gmail and choose the mail that you want to save as a PDF.
  • Now, select the Print All icon, and the email preview will open.
  • Click on the Save button and select the location where you want to save the email on your system.
  • Then, hit the Save button to save Gmail as PDF.

The above method is the fastest but possesses the constraint of saving only a single Gmail email at once. So, it turns out to be time-consuming.

3. Through MS Outlook

  • Launch MS Outlook on your system, and under the File menu, go to Add Account.
  • A new tab will open, fill in your Name, Gmail account, and the third-party app-generated password.
  • Hit the Next icon, and the MS Outlook application will initiate the Gmail account linking process to Outlook.
  • Once the procedure is finished, click on Finish.

Your Gmail account mailbox will be accessed through MS Outlook with this method. Perhaps, any email that you delete from your Gmail account will be directly deleted from Outlook.

All the manual methods discussed above can export email from Gmail. However, all of them have some other limitations like they are very time-consuming and not apart for many users. You can only export a single email at a time that can be very hectic. Hence, it is suggested to use professional Gmail backup tools for the safe and quick migration of Gmail mailboxes.

If you wish to overcome all these limitations, you can go for another method through which you can backup Gmail emails directly to your local drive-in various formats. Gmail Backup Software is the software that allows you to save and download Gmail emails with attachments in multiple file formats like PDF, PST, OST, MBOX, DOCX, etc. Furthermore, you can also migrate and import Gmail mailboxes to different email clients like Thunderbird, Office 365, Zoho Mail, etc.

Conclusion

Here, we have discussed the requirement to export email from Gmail. It has become necessary in today’s time to do so. The manual methods that help us in this process have been deeply mentioned so that you can perform them accurately. These methods possess some problems that limit their use. To skip these problems, you can directly go for the professional Gmail Converter Tool that can easily allow you to save Gmail data on a hard drive along with all the attachments.

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