Home How To How to Backup Gmail Emails: Complete Step by Step Guide

How to Backup Gmail Emails: Complete Step by Step Guide

Nowadays, it is convenient for everyone to use Gmail for email communication as it has a lot of storage space and it also provides many other services as well. However, there are some people who want to keep all of their Gmail emails from their account on their PC or hard drive. This can be done for backup purposes or because of the full memory in their Gmail account.


Hence, in this article, we will discuss the different methods to backup Gmail emails with all attachments to external hard drive. You can go through all of the methods to do this and get your job done. Gmail backup is a best decision as we don’t know the future. Sometimes, you can lose your email due to password mismatch or Gmail account being hacked.


Manual Methods to Create a complete Backup of Gmail Emails on Computer

You can try the following manual methods listed below for taking the backup of your Gmail accounts data manually within sufficient time. This method helps you in backing up your Gmail contacts to the system location. Follows the procedure of these manual methods to learn it:

  • Backup Gmail emails Using Google Takeout
  • Save Email Backup from Gmail as PDF on External Hard Drive
  • Backup Gmail Emails via MS Outlook
  • Backup Gmail Emails through Regain Gmail Backup Tool

Solution # 1: Backup Gmail Data Using Google Takeout


If you are looking for a free Gmail backup solution, then you can try this Google Takeout method provided by Google for its Google app users. Using this manual approach you can easily backup emails from your Gmail account in MBOX file format.

  • Go to www.gmail.com in your PC browser and log in to your account using the credentials.
    [Please note that the Gmail account is the one whose data is to be extracted.]
  • This will load your Gmail account where you have to move the mouse pointer to the right side of the screen and click on your tenant's icon.
  • A window will open here in which you have to click on the My Account button.
  • A new tab will automatically open where you can expand the Personal info and Privacy section by clicking on it.
  • Now scroll down the page until you no longer come across the Download or Transfer Your Content box. Once you find it, click the Create Archive link.
  • Now a Google Takeout page will open, where the first field is "Select data to include". By default, all Google products are already selected to extract data from. However, if you don't want data from all Google products to be extracted, click the Deselect All link.
  • Now, one by one, check the checkboxes only for the Gmail items whose data you want to extract. For example - we only choose Mail and Contacts.
    [Additional information - If you want to filter the subfolders of the mail item, click on the All Mail Data Included feature. This will bring up a window with 'Mail content options' where you only select the Gmail folders whose data you want Google Takeout to extract.]
  • Now, you just click on the Next Step button to start the process to extract Gmail data.
  • This will open the next field of Google Takeout i.e., 'Customize archive format'
  • First, you will see a Delivery Method section where you must choose one of the five methods listed. Each method has its own range of functions. The description of the functionality is shown directly under the selected delivery method. We choose the option "Send download link via email".
  • Now, in the next 'file type section', you need to select either the .zip or .tgz option. We recommend that you choose the ZIP option as it is easily accessible on most computers.
  • The last field in the correct section is "Archive Size". If archives become larger than the specified archive value, the solution will automatically split the output file into multiple files. You can change the default value if you want to do the same.
  • At last, click the Create Archive button to start the process of extracting Gmail data using Google Takeout.
  • When the backup process is complete, a page will appear where you need to click the Download button to save the extracted data to the local computer.


Solution #2: Save Email Backup from Gmail as PDF on External Hard Drive

  • First of all you need to open Gmail account on your computer.
  • Now log in to your account by entering User I.D. and Password.
  • Now you need to open the Gmail email which you want to save on your hard drive.
  • After that you will see the 'Print All' button in the upper right corner. Click on it.
  • Then when you click the Print All icon, a pop-up window will appear in front of you.
  • Now you have to adjust the settings to your needs and then click on Print.
  • Now the 'Save As' window is displayed on the screen.
  • Select PDF in the Save as type option and then click the Save button.
  • After you saving the email on your computer, you can copy and paste it into your external hard drive

Solution #3: Backup Gmail Emails via MS Outlook

  • Launch MS Outlook on your system and log in.
  • Now, click the Settings Gear button and then click the Show all Outlook settings option in the drop-down menu.
  • After that click the Gmail option and hit the Sync Email option.
  • A pop-up window appears on the screen, in which you must enter the display name.
  • Now, click Connect your Google Account option
  • Now create a new folder for the emails into which all the Gmail emails will be imported and then click the OK button.
  • Now you have to choose Gmail Account from which you will import all emails into MS Outlook
  • Now provide the correct credentials of your Gmail account and click Next button to move further.
  • When prompted for authentication, click Allow and close the settings windows.

Limitations of Manual Methods

  • These manual solutions take hours or possibly days for backing up your Gmail account data.
  • The Google Takeout backup solution, takes the back up of your Gmail emails and save them in MBOX format only.
  • While using Google Takeout method you have to save all the files manually every time. No automatic backup option.
  • All of these manual solutions require space for all archives. In addition, the archive must be properly managed, which time is consuming too.
  • There are limited attempts to download the archive. If the download attempts reach their limits, the user must request the archive again.

There is a time uncertainty in this process because it only takes a lot of time and the user has to wait a long time for its completion.

But don’t worry! Here we would like to propose an alternative solution that is secured and works instantly to backup Single / Multiple emails from Gmail accounts to computer. Gmail Backup Tool is the professional software that can easily backup Gmail emails with selective backup’s options and mass migration functions.

Free Download100% Secure
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Backup Gmail Data through Regain Gmail Backup Tool

Download and Launch the Regain Gmail Backup Software on your computer.



Enter the Credentials of your Gmail Account and log in to backup your G-mail account data.



Now software will show you Preview of all available Mailbox Folders, you can Select or De-Select folder for selective backup.



Choose the File Format of your choice in which you want to backup Gmail data.



Now software will shows the backup progress report in details.



Once the backup process completes, a confirmation message will be shown, then click on "finish" tab.



Benefits of Using a Professional Gmail Backup Tool

  • It provide fast and easy backup of Gmail mailbox with all components.
  • There is no chance of data loss and it saves a lot of time of the user.
  • This is an advance tool that supports the backup of Gmail data even without installing MS Outlook.
  • Using this tool you can backup Gmail account data in PST, MSG, MBOX, EML, EMLX, HTML, MHTML, PDF format.
  • This software is designed with GUI, so you did not require any technical expertise to backup all the emails from Gmail to a Hard Drive.
  • The backup process is simple and quick to backup single or multiple Gmail accounts selectively.
  • It backup users account data while maintain data integrity and folder structure.
  • The best part of this tool is that it provides free demo version to users, so that you can check its working performance before purchasing it.
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