Archiving old Gmail emails?
May 28, 2021 11:56 AM Subscribe
Is there a way to remove (en masse) old emails from Gmail so they won't count against my Google Drive limit, without losing them forever?
I've always used Gmail the way it was advertised -- archive all your emails, don't delete any, and they'll remain searchable forever. However, I'm now hitting the Google Drive limit, and they are pushing me to pay for Google storage. I would prefer not to pay Google for storage.
I'm wondering if there's a way to easily remove old emails, siphon them into a new place (e.g. a new Google account, or a hard drive), and keep them accessible for some rare future searches.
I've already deleted the few emails that are greater than 20 MB but my emails as a whole are adding up to 11 GB, and I think the vast majority of that data is middling-sized emails, just adding up over years.
I've always used Gmail the way it was advertised -- archive all your emails, don't delete any, and they'll remain searchable forever. However, I'm now hitting the Google Drive limit, and they are pushing me to pay for Google storage. I would prefer not to pay Google for storage.
I'm wondering if there's a way to easily remove old emails, siphon them into a new place (e.g. a new Google account, or a hard drive), and keep them accessible for some rare future searches.
I've already deleted the few emails that are greater than 20 MB but my emails as a whole are adding up to 11 GB, and I think the vast majority of that data is middling-sized emails, just adding up over years.
Google Takeout to download them in an mbox format, which you should be able to open with most email clients, and then delete them from Gmail.
posted by sagc at 12:02 PM on May 28, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by sagc at 12:02 PM on May 28, 2021 [12 favorites]
You can add the Gmail account as an IMAP server in a desktop email client, and copy or move emails to a local folder. The copy process will take several hours. If a message has multiple tags you could end up with multiple copies of it.
posted by Phssthpok at 12:03 PM on May 28, 2021
posted by Phssthpok at 12:03 PM on May 28, 2021
Personally I'd use IMAP rather than POP3, exactly because IMAP doesn't come with any assumption of deletion on collection by default. Also because IMAP gives you access to stuff in folders other than the Inbox and POP3 doesn't.
After setting Thunderbird up with IMAP access to my Gmail account (which I believe the current version will do all by itself as soon as you tell it what your Gmail address is) I would then set up its local sync settings to make it cache a local copy of every IMAP folder it could see except Spam and Trash.
Then I would wait the multiple geological ages it takes for all that stuff to download.
Then I would copy it all to Local Folders. That gives me my backup copy that IMAP doesn't know about.
Then I would shut down Thunderbird and make a backup of all its local mail folders onto an external hard drive. Then make another one on a second external hard drive.
Then and only then would I delete the downloaded mails from my Gmail account.
posted by flabdablet at 12:07 PM on May 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
After setting Thunderbird up with IMAP access to my Gmail account (which I believe the current version will do all by itself as soon as you tell it what your Gmail address is) I would then set up its local sync settings to make it cache a local copy of every IMAP folder it could see except Spam and Trash.
Then I would wait the multiple geological ages it takes for all that stuff to download.
Then I would copy it all to Local Folders. That gives me my backup copy that IMAP doesn't know about.
Then I would shut down Thunderbird and make a backup of all its local mail folders onto an external hard drive. Then make another one on a second external hard drive.
Then and only then would I delete the downloaded mails from my Gmail account.
posted by flabdablet at 12:07 PM on May 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
I would do what flabdablet suggests except I would add a step. I would create another GMail account say lewedswiver2@gmail. When I IMAPed my original gmail account to Thunderbird and after I copied it to local folders, I would also create an IMAP account in Thunderbird for the 2nd gmail accoint and then copy to that folder as well. THen, I would have an online in the cloud backup of your original account that can be searched via a web browser from anywhere.
What I started doing too is I created a 2nd gmail account and forward every email I get to that account. Then when it gets too big I open a 3rd account and foward to that. I can delete emails in my original account that I have already forwarded.
posted by AugustWest at 1:11 PM on May 28, 2021
What I started doing too is I created a 2nd gmail account and forward every email I get to that account. Then when it gets too big I open a 3rd account and foward to that. I can delete emails in my original account that I have already forwarded.
posted by AugustWest at 1:11 PM on May 28, 2021
Whatever email client you use to download the mail (if you are on Windows 10 try the included Mail application, although who knows if Microsoft will eventually remove it to make us work in the cloud) I recommend Mailstore Home as the tool for archiving your mail. This is free for home use. It archives mail from all sorts of email clients into its database, has great search capabilities, and will export/restore mail to all sorts of email clients - and not just to where they came from! This means you can, for example, export from Outlook, then restore to Thunderbird if you want to try that out for a while, then export from Thunderbird and restore everything to something else (or back to Outlook).
posted by TimHare at 11:03 PM on May 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by TimHare at 11:03 PM on May 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by beyond_pink at 12:01 PM on May 28, 2021