

Trust me, you’ll want to have the trash empty for this next step. Open a browser, log in to the Gmail account you’re using, and empty your trash. The next step is weird, but it’s the only way I’ve been able to get Thunderbird to play “nice” with Gmail.

You can see that I have a folder in the above image for the year 2003, which is the oldest email I have (that was back when I had a Hotmail address… I feel so dirty admitting that!).
#Gyb gmail backup archive
So, I created subfolders under the Archive folder for each year of emails I wanted to back up. However, you’ll probably want to create a subfolder in that folder with a memorable name (e.g., “2015 Work”). Technically, you could store whatever emails you want to store in that folder. Once you’ve got your email synchronized, right-click on “Local Folders” and select “New Folder.” I called my new folder “Archive.” I had over 167,000 emails in my online archive account. With the over one hundred thousand emails I had in my online archive, it took the better part of a day to do all the synchronizing. Once you have your email account set up in Thunderbird, click on the All Mail folder (assuming it’s a Gmail account) and let Thunderbird take the time it needs to synchronize all of your email locally. I’m not going to go through those steps as there are plenty of tutorials for both of them.
#Gyb gmail backup install
So, how does it work? And how did I set it up?įirst, install Thunderbird and set up whatever online email account you want to backup. And, it’s free, doesn’t violate any terms of service, and works with my existing data backup approach. Easily might be a bit of a stretch here, but it is retrievable using this solution. I was wondering if there was a way to have Mozilla archive my email in a way that I can easily retrieve the email should I need to. I have used Thunderbird for various tasks in the past and like its interface. Enter Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client.
#Gyb gmail backup software
I’m also a fan of Open Source Software (OSS) and would prefer an OSS solution to any software needs I have. In other words, I have local and offsite redundancy for all my important files.) Certain folders on the file server are backed up in real-time to an online service so I also have a real-time offsite backup of all my important files. (FYI, my storage solution is to run a local file server in my house with a RAID array so I have plenty of space and local backups. Since I have already worked out a storage solution for old files that is quite reliable, moving my old email to that storage solution makes sense. And, of course, I’m always wary about storing my data with Google or other large software companies. However, Google has recently changed its storage policies for their email accounts, which has made me a little nervous. Basically, I created a second email account that I use almost exclusively (not exclusively – I use it for a couple of other things) for storing the email from my primary Gmail account. However, my current approach to backing up my email is, let’s say, a borderline violation of Google’s Terms of Service. Several times, I have gone back 5 or more years to look for a specific email and my archive has saved me. There have been times when I have actually benefited from my email archive.
