For anyone who uses Gmail or any other type of email client, one of the most important considerations is to have the ability to carry your information wherever your want. This is especially important if the data in question contains critical information. For the longest time, Gmail has not offered the ability to download emails for their clients, but this has since changed. In December 2013, Gmail unveiled a new functionality that allows users to download their Gmail messages with ease. This has since made it possible for users to download and store data in off-shore locations for safety or to move it to other clients. With this new service for Gmail, users will now be able to download all or part of their messages, appointments and even have the ability to choose labels and calendars. This new service also comes with the option of downloading one archive of all the account data in Gmail, Google+, Calendar, Drive and YouTube among many others.

Download Gmail emails – How it works

To be able to download data from your Gmail account, you are required to make use of the accounts page on Google through the ‘download your data’ link. You will then be required to click on the button under ‘create an archive’ to choose the type of data you want to download.

This service allows Gmail users the ability to download all their Gmail emails or to download labelled emails. The downloaded mail data is automatically stored in MBOX format. This format was preferred because it is supported by other mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail as well as Thunderbird.

Worth noting is the fact that Google has put limits on the number of times you can export your Gmail messages. You can only download and export messages for a maximum of three times each day and not more than seven times each week.

Download Gmail emails – What happens after exporting Gmail data

Once you have downloaded and exported your Gmail emails, the labels are kept in a specialized x-Gmail-labels header and are stored in CSV format.

Users are also able to download all or several calendars. The calendar data is collected and stored in iCalendar format, a common format for storage of calendar entries and is supported by different calendar programs that are either desktop to web based.