Keep any message you have any doubt about. I then went through those and deleted a lot of messages that had large attachments. Get to know GMail’s search terms such as before or has. It will reduce how much you have to download by a lot.

Delete useless old email from GMail first.

Then sort and save the old messages into a file on the computer.

The answer is to use a temporary email program to download the whole GMail archive. So how do I make an archive of my GMail account? I delete messages the instant I’m finished with them (because I could always find the information on GMail).

Now with the GMail system, I use the Mail program as a reader only. If I ever needed to find an old message, it would be waiting for me. At the end of the year, I would archive that folder into a file on the computer. I’ve had experiences in the past where finding an old message is invaluable.īefore I switched to GMail, I would archive my email in a folder on the Mail program. I could go through and delete my old email. But today, it’s simply not enough and I’ll run out of space within the next few months. Having 200 MB of free email space used to be a lot. After a year and a half, I’ve used 2600 MB of my 2800 MB email box (thank you Google). Instead it is stored in the “All Mail” archive along with all my sent messages, too. The downloaded email is not erased from GMail (like traditional POP servers). Instead I POP my email into my Apple Mail program. I never use the GMail web interface unless I’m on the road. How to archive a Gmail account using Thunderbird

Thunderbird gmail pop3