Offline backup of Gmail messages?

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SunTiger

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#195536 23-Apr-2016 13:12

Hey all, at the moment I'm looking for a way to backup my Gmail messages offline - this could involve a program such as Thunderbird which downloads the messages to the hard drive, and then the messages are saved through my usual backup system.

I've installed Thunderbird and started to download the Gmail messages, but after downloading about 200 messages it says 'No new messages' and I have to click the "Get mail" button (I think it is called something like that) to get it started again. As there are literally tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of messages, this may take a while...

Can anyone recommend a way of downloading all the messages at once through Thunderbird, or a better program which can download all the messages at once? thanks heaps

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#1540641 23-Apr-2016 13:14

If they are in the inbox them a pop3 connection should do it.

JamesL

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#1540643 23-Apr-2016 13:20

You can use google takeout to download your gmail in mbox format https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

mdf

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#1540645 23-Apr-2016 13:23

Check gmail --> settings --> forwarding and pop/imap. Make sure that your choice is enabled (in particular, if using pop, that it's enabled for all messages). Be very careful with the delete/archive settings so you don't end up deleting the version on gmail unintentionally.

littleheaven

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#1540655 23-Apr-2016 13:49

If you have access to Microsoft Outlook, you could connect your Gmail account to Outlook, and then for super safety there's an add-on you can get for Outlook which will back your messages from there up to any local folder (it runs each time you shut Outlook down). I have my business email (from my web host) backed up from Outlook to my OneDrive folder, which is then stored in the Cloud as well as on my machine.

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gzt

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#1540658 23-Apr-2016 14:33

I'm guessing there will be a message age setting in the Thunderbird pop3 area and or a max number to get at one time setting.

'Delete downloaded messages from server' is usually on by default for mail applications so be very careful with Thunderbird and other mail applications.

How big is your Gmail box?

Anyone care to comment on mail applications/formats handling this size box? Many start running into various kinds of corruption issues as size increases.

gzt

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#1540662 23-Apr-2016 14:40

JamesL:
You can use google takeout to download your gmail in mbox format https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

+1 do that before you take any other action then you have an additional backup online and offline.

Edit: Thunderbird is compatible with Google mbox format. No need for pop.

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mdf

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#1540718 23-Apr-2016 15:51

Thunderbird lets you save messages in .eml (which has metadata in a format that can be read by windows). If you save all you messages, you can just do incremental backups without the risk of corrupting a single large file (e.g. .pst or .ost).

gzt

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#1540719 23-Apr-2016 15:54

How does google's mbox format store or refer to attachments?

davidcole

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#1540724 23-Apr-2016 16:24

Look at gmvault - downoads all emails as .eml files. I do this as a backup

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SunTiger

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#1541549 25-Apr-2016 11:21

Thanks for the suggestions, the other thing is that I'm looking for Calendar software for my Windows 8 PC, for a while I considered Thunderbird because it has the Lightning extension which is iCal compatible (for moving my iCal data from my old Macbook). Unfortunately it looks like Mozilla won't be supporting Thunderbird much in the future:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird

Open source software is preferred, so can anyone recommend a iCal compatible open source calendar program running on Windows 8?

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#1541594 25-Apr-2016 12:05

Happy to answer if you ask in the linux forum. There will be better coverage.

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#1541599 25-Apr-2016 12:11

Mailstore Home Free - free for private users. Can back up any email system, has a decent search function.

richms

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#1541611 25-Apr-2016 12:19

Thunderbird and imap grabs everything from gmail for me it seems? I can be offline and go back ages and the messages are there, and its about 12 gigs of stuff added to the backup. I never did anything about hitting download more when it came down?

Richard rich.ms

nunz

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#1541618 25-Apr-2016 12:29

SunTiger:

Hey all, at the moment I'm looking for a way to backup my Gmail messages offline - this could involve a program such as Thunderbird which downloads the messages to the hard drive, and then the messages are saved through my usual backup system.

I've installed Thunderbird and started to download the Gmail messages, but after downloading about 200 messages it says 'No new messages' and I have to click the "Get mail" button (I think it is called something like that) to get it started again. As there are literally tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of messages, this may take a while...

Can anyone recommend a way of downloading all the messages at once through Thunderbird, or a better program which can download all the messages at once? thanks heaps

I cannot recommend MailStore Home Edition highly enough.

Failing that, any Pop / Imap enabled mail client. Thunderbird and Eudora andPegasus mail all allow saving in .eml format, where as Outlook dumps it in an OST type format which is problematic.

If you do put it into outlook archive All your mail from your iMap account into an archive File

To do the archive.

1 - Set up archiving in Outlook.

2 - Set up the pst to archive to.

3 - Run a manual archive from tomorrows date - forcing all mail to be moved into the archive pst file.

Done - with your file / folder structure kept intact.

But again, I cannot recommend MailStore Home highly enough.

nunz

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#1541619 25-Apr-2016 12:32

SunTiger:

Thanks for the suggestions, the other thing is that I'm looking for Calendar software for my Windows 8 PC, for a while I considered Thunderbird because it has the Lightning extension which is iCal compatible (for moving my iCal data from my old Macbook). Unfortunately it looks like Mozilla won't be supporting Thunderbird much in the future:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird

Open source software is preferred, so can anyone recommend a iCal compatible open source calendar program running on Windows 8?

Why not gMail, Yahoo, etc? Alternatives:

smarterMail by smartertools.com - But it is a full mail server system.

Zentyal. & ClearOS both offer full exchange replacement functionality including calendars and are open source.

KoLab - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolab - is used by ClearOS and is enterprise ready

use lightening - it wont stop working just because it isn't supported by Mozilla.

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