How to Download Gmail Mailbox to Hard Drive?

“My Gmail account is not working properly. Whenever I try to reload it doesn’t show my last few emails, which is very important for me. I need to access those emails. But I don’t know how to download Gmail mailbox to hard drive. Suggestions are welcome if anyone can help me with this?”

“As you know, the Google services hold the key to a lot of important things for your business as well as your personal life. For example, Gmail has become almost essential to existence. In this case, it should be your first priority to make sure that you save Gmail emails to a flash drive or hard drive data so that you never lose any of your important emails from it. If something like this ever happens, you have plenty of options if you want to download Gmail emails to your hard drive.”

Download Gmail mailbox to hard drive

Google is a powerful tool that makes it possible for users to download Gmail emails in a compressed format (ZIP). This is the simplest and most direct solution to the problem of downloading Gmail mailboxes to the hard drive.

Here, an interesting fact is that you will not find this tool in your Gmail. For that, you need to open your Google Account and log in to it.

Read Also:  Copy Emails from Windows Live Mail to Hard Drive

Importance of Gmail data backup

In the world of information and modern technology, we use digital data very frequently. The data used to create digital content is so important that it has become an integral part of our lives.

There is a requirement to create a copy of this data before it gets lost. exporting the data to system storage is given the most importance in order to be prepared for future needs where data may be completely lost.

It is required to archive these folders to restore the data in case of data loss. Making and maintaining copies of your business data is what data backup implies.

This comprises information about applications and products, customer files, staff and supplier records, and market research. When the original information is lost or corrupted, recovery includes taking those copies and recovering the data.

Why do we need to export Gmail emails to hard drive?

• Either you want to back up your Gmail box or you want to access it offline. You must always download or save your Gmail mailbox in your system’s hard drive to avoid any future emergency.
• Due to problems with Google, many users prefer to download their data (Gmail mailbox) to the hard drive. So that they can access it when needed.
• The physical presence of the data is preferred over the non-physical existence.
• Sometimes it is also necessary to take a backup of Gmail emails when the storage is exhausted as Gmail only has 15GB of free space.

Methods to Save Gmail Mailbox to Hard Drive

#1. Download email message one by one

Let’s understand how to backup Gmail emails to computer with step by step process.

1. Log in to your Google Account using your login credentials.
2. Open your specific email message that you want to download one by one.
3. Then, click on the three dots that appear on the right side of the email message.
4. Click “Download Message”.
5. Then your file will be downloaded in EML format.

Limitations:

Only one EML file can be downloaded from Gmail at a time using the manual approach. Undoubtedly, Users can save an unlimited number of EML files from Gmail using this method. But, it is a time-consuming method that does not allow for bulk EML downloads from Gmail.

#2. Google Takeout

Google takeout method is in-built feature of Google. it allows their users to backup Gmail mailbox. In this process your files are copied, they will not be deleted from your google account, so your data is safe in the entire process.

See the steps below to understand the process in details:

1. Sign in to your google account and go to the https://takeout.google.com/
2. Choose the Gmail and also other services of the google you wish to include.
Note: “Deselect all” and only choose the services you need.
3. Select the file type, destination and frequency.
4. Tap “Create Export” and the .zip files will be sent to the email provided within 24 hours.
It all depends on the amount of content you are exporting.

Drawbacks of Google Takeout:

• Limited Data Backup:- A user can only perform 2-3 backups per day; Gmail data backups are limited in Google takeout. The greater issue is that Google Takeout does not work even if the backup is complete.
• Google Takeout Network Error:– This error occurs when internet access is suddenly disrupted.
• There is no option to resume:– There is no way to resume the archiving process after it has been paused.
• Retries are limited: You have a limited number of attempts to download the archive. If you don’t succeed in the first 5-6 tries, the download link will become obsolete.
• Incomplete Google Takeout Archive:– Google will occasionally say that it was unable to build a backup of your data. The greater data size is the main reason behind this.

#3. Professional Approach to download Gmail mailbox to hard drive 

If you’re looking for a quick way to download or backup your Gmail mailbox to your hard drive, you can do so using the Gmail backup tool. It is one of the most popular software used by many users. It can be handled by the users who don’t have technical skills. This software is widely used to save Gmail emails. This is recommended by many users. You can download email from Gmail  in popular file formats such as PST, PDF, EML, MSG, MBOX, DOC, HTML. You can migrate your Gmail messages to popular email clients also.

Conclusion

Here, we have discussed how Gmail emails are important for users and without it they may not be able to handle their professional work. Even a common user faces trouble if his/her data is lost.

Therefore, the need of the hour is to understand that there is a need to take regular backups to avoid these uncertain situations. For this the user can follow any of the methods mentioned in this article. But a quick and effective way is to choose the one that meets your requirements.