How to Save Emails from Gmail to Computer (Desktop)

Gmail has become a part of everyone’s life, doesn’t matter from which field the person is. It holds a key to a lot of things such as personal and business files. Most Gmail users generally link their accounts with their mobile devices to store pictures, documents, bank statements, etc. But, does all the crucial data is safe in your account?

The answer is No, as the technology is increasing, the hackers are getting smarter also. A common user can increase the security of its account by various means, but that doesn’t mean that hackers cannot crack it. You cannot protect your Gmail account from hackers but you can protect your account data. You can simply save emails from Gmail to computer / hard drive as a backup copy. In any case, if your account got hacked, you can still access your account data and import it into another account.

We recommend all Gmail users to save Gmail emails to hard drive with attachments as a backup copy. So, if your account is compromised, you will still have your data with you. You can either save Gmail messages as PDF for offline reading or any other popular email format, such as PST, MBOX, etc. Also know how to backup Google Drive documents to computer to protect data and increase space.

Manual Steps to Save emails from Gmail to Computer

• Open your Gmail Account
• Click on Personal Info and Privacy
• Click on Control your Content
• Click Create Archive. To take backup of Gmail
• Select each aspect of your Google account you wish to back up. By default, everything here is selected.
• Even if you don’t want to download everything, make sure the switch to the right of “Mail” is selected before continuing.
• You’ll see a downward-facing arrow to the right of “All mail”–clicking it will allow you to choose between downloading all of your emails and selecting specific labels to download only emails with those labels attached.
• Click Next. It’s at the bottom of the screen.
• Make sure “.zip” is selected
• Click the box under the “Archive size (max)” heading.
• Click a download size. Anything larger than your selected file size will carry over into a new file.

Note: If you want to save emails from Gmail to computer in a size format, then if you choose “4GB” but your file is 6GB, you’ll end up downloading two files: a 4GB file and a 2GB file.

• Click the box beneath the “Delivery method” heading. You’ll see several ways of receiving your backup file here:
  • Send download link via email – Receive a link for the download file in your current Gmail address. Clicking the link will prompt your file to download.
  • Add to Drive – Place the download file in Google Drive. Doing so will take up Google Drive storage.
  • Add to Dropbox – Place the download file in your connected Dropbox account (if you have one).
  • Add to OneDrive – Place the download file in your connected OneDrive account (if you have one).
• Click create an archive. Doing so will begin backing up your Gmail account to your selected file type.

Automated Solution on How to Save Emails from Gmail to Computer

You can see the above steps are quite lengthy, to avoid this kind of hurdle while saving Gmail emails, use an automated tool such as Gmail Backup Tool – It’s the best to save emails from Gmail to computer or Hard drive. You can use this tool for saving emails in PST, EML, MSG, MBOX, and PDF file formats.

The tool has its most promising features and it also has one demo version to prove its capability. The tool comes with numerous functions and it also supports Windows 8 and above versions. Moreover, you can also save particular folder emails from your Gmail account using the Folder filter option of the tool.

Step-by-Step Method to Save Gmail Emails to Desktop/ Hard Drive:

1. Use the below download button to get the tool for Windows / Mac & launch it.

2. Input your Gmail address and password into the tool for authentication.

3. Once authentication is finished, go to the category section as select item as “Emails”

4. Next choose email-format to save Gmail emails

5. Browse the location of computer or hard drive for saving emails

6. Use Apply Filter option for folder / date-range filter and hit Start button.

Now the tool will initiate the process and start saving emails from your Gmail account into the chosen format. You can either save emails on your desktop computer or any other external media such as a pen drive or hard drive.

Final Words

Nowadays you cannot be sure when someone is constantly lurking for a security hole to compromise your Gmail account and the information it contains. Although Google has very tight security to protect its user against hackers and cyber threats, it safe to constantly save emails from Gmail to computer. In this blog, we’ve discussed multiple ways to save Gmail emails locally for safekeeping. You can choose the method that suits your requirement and start saving your Gmail account data for security purposes.