How to Export Your Emails from Gmail As Mbox Files

All the emails in your Gmail account are available for download via IMAP (and POP to boot). Having your email program fetch the full Monty does take time, though, there may be errors and false starts (or, worse, mistaken continuations), and you may have a copy of your Gmail messages in the end with holes here and duplicates there.

How about a process, then, that, as an alternative, will produce one file to download that contains all your Gmail messages for importing into your email program (or easy archiving)? Gmail offers just such a procedure, and in addition to exporting all mail you can also export labels individually. (Particularly large Gmail mail stores will be broken into smaller files for easier and more robust handling.)

Export Your Emails from Gmail As Mbox Files

To download a copy of messages in your Gmail account in the Mbox file format (which can be easily imported into many an email program and even be opened with some profit in a plain text editor):

• Make sure Mail is checked under Configure your data archive.
• Click Edit under Mail if available.
• To download one copy of each message in your Gmail account in one Mbox file:
  • Make sure Include all of your mail is checked under Gmail labels.
• To download copies of all messages in select labels, one Mbox file per label:
  • Make sure Select labels is selected under Gmail labels.
  • Now make sure all the labels you want to include in your Mbox file are checked underSelect labels to download.
    • For a quick way to select all labels but Spam and Trash, click Select all, then clickSpam and Trash.
    • To deselect all labels, click Select all to have all checked, then click Select allagain.
    • To avoid huge files to download, you can try exporting one label only or two at a time maybe, then repeat the process for another label.
    • $ Note that you may get duplicate messages if you select custom labels together with Archive.
  • Click OK.
• To download your Mbox file compressed using a format different from .zip:
  • Click change following .zip file format.
  • Select the desired format under Archive file format.
• Click CREATE ARCHIVE.
• Wait for your Mbox file email archive to be created.
  • You need not keep the Download your data - Account Settings page open; Gmail will continue creating your download in the background.
  • Instead, wait for an email from "Google Takeout <noreply@google.com>" with the subject "Your Google data archive is ready" when Gmail has finished collecting and exporting your emails to an Mbox file.
  • You can follow the See your available archives link, of course, in the email you received from Google Takeout.
• Click Download for the desired archive.
  • Check the data and, possibly, click Show archive details to make sure Mail is included in the archive.
• If you are prompted to log in to Google:
  • Type your Gmail password over Passwordunder Please re-enter your password.
  • Click Sign in.
• Expand the .zip, .tgz or .tbz file you downloaded.
• Find the "All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox" file—or, if you exported labels separately, .mbox files named after the labels—in the Mail folder.