Older Gmail Messages Into Thunderbird

September 13, 2009 8:42 PM

How do I backup my gmail account and get all of my older gmail messages into Thunderbird on Windows XP?

I'm trying to backup gmail using Thunderbird and it's not downloading older messages. When I installed Thunderbird and set it up with my gmail account it downloaded messages going back to 6/22/2009 4:08 AM. I have no idea where Thunderbird got that date from.

I have emails much older than that and when I tell Thunderbird to get messages it only downloads the newer ones. How do I get Thunderbird to backup all of those older gmail messages onto my computer.

If there is any other information I can provide that would help I'll update in comments.

posted by davidstandaford to computers & internet (2 answers total)

Chances are that you've archived some of your messages in your Gmail account. As a result, they're no longer in the "Inbox" folder and instead are stored under the "All Messages" folder. There's a guide to setting up Thunderbird to work with GMail here. The key step is to subscribe to the "All Mail" subfolder. Then you just need to configure Thunderbird to download everything and back it up.

Quote from the page: 'In Thunderbird, right click on new account in "All Folders" pane and "Subscribe..." and subscribe to all the Gmail folders of interest.'
posted by Aanidaani at 8:55 PM on September 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

It seems to be working now, although the problem was that I had set up POP3 instead of IMAP, which is the default that Thunderbird uses. Anyway, in the guide you linked I noticed my mistake and it seems to be happily downloading away, getting all my messages.
posted by davidstandaford at 9:29 PM on September 13, 2009