Want to back up your Gmail e-mails or are you planning to migrate Gmail to a different service all together?
I was going to delete my e-mails in my inbox to tidy up a bit and I thought “what if I delete something I didn’t want to?”. This led me to seek out a way to backup my Gmail e-mails in case this happened. Come to find out, you can download your e-mails and contacts to use with a different e-mail service provider or just for backup purposes directly through Google!
I stumbled across this little known gem: https://www.google.com/settings/takeout
Google has been kind enough to offer all of it’s services available to you like your Gmail E-mails, calendar entries, Google Places information and pretty much anything that you have stored on their servers in open formats. First, just log into your Gmail or Google+ account so Google knows what account to backup. Once you are there:
1. Go to the link listed above, click on “Create an Archive”.
2. Choose what services to archive and wait while they are prepared for download.
What do you mean by open formats?
This means that all of your information is saved in an open industry file type. Making it easy for you to import your Gmail e-mails into your favorite e-mail program like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird for example. For more information on the file types used, see: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024195
Tutorials to import the “mbox” files into your favorite e-mail program: https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=6436
For an FAQ regarding this service and additional information: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en
