Exporting Gmails With A Specific Subject Line

August 10, 2012 12:34 AM

How do I go about exporting a set of emails from 3 gmail accounts with a clearly defined subject line (i.e XXX DATE) from one sender when other senders also send the same subject line?

I need to archive in a separate gmail account all emails sent by a certain sender that follow the subject format XXX DATE. These emails span three separate gmail accounts. I have full control over the gmail accounts for now. What is the best way to export those emails and those emails only to a new gmail account?

posted by anonymous to Technology (6 answers total)

I'd play with Gmail's own filtering rules before trying anything else. It should be pretty easy to create a filter that selects mails with the subject line and sender you want and make it add a specific tag to those mails.

I can't remember whether Gmail lets you forward selected mails to another account without modifying the headers (I know it can do this for incoming mails, but I'm not sure about mails already received) but even if you can't do it directly you could set up Thunderbird or some other IMAP client, download the IMAP folders corresponding to the tags your filter rules created from your three source accounts, then drag and drop those mails to whatever folder you like in your target account.
posted by flabdablet at 1:16 AM on August 10, 2012

You download the mail to an IMAP client (which might be another gmail account, btw), and delete the stuff you don't want OR you do an advanced search for the e-mails and forward them somewhere else.
posted by devnull at 1:16 AM on August 10, 2012

And having done the IMAP dance once, you could certainly set up Gmail filter rules to keep your target account updated as new mails matching the filter arrive in the three original accounts.
posted by flabdablet at 1:17 AM on August 10, 2012

I'm not sure what you have access to, but I think imapsync will do that.
posted by Blake at 4:35 AM on August 10, 2012

Where are you exporting to? What or where is recipient? This can have a bearing on the process. Also, it could be possible you may do a bulk export of then entire mailbox, then separate later. Also, a paid Gmail account vs free account has certain features that may be useful.

Without more info I can't give a complete answer.
posted by lampshade at 5:36 AM on August 10, 2012

If it's not necessary to archive these emails in a separate gmail account, you could use Evernote instead. With this IFTTT recipe, you can star an email and send it to Evernote. I'd imagine that all you need to do is run a search using some advanced search operators, then star the results away.
posted by colorproof at 2:29 AM on August 12, 2012