Top 2 Ways to Backup Gmail Emails Locally - Easy and Fast

Can Gmail Be Stored Locally?

Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. There are many users who use Gmail as their email service of choice. All of the email you send and receive through Gmail is securely stored on Google's cloud servers. However, if your account is compromised or inaccessible for any reason, you could lose access to all of your email and possibly even important personal and business conversations you've made. You could also lose your valuable contacts and their email addresses as a result.

That's why a lot of people wonder if they can keep a copy of all the email they've received and sent through Gmail so far locally on their computer, device, or hard drive. Fortunately, backing up Gmail to a local hard drive is very easy. Keep reading and we will introduce two ways to backup Gmail emails locally.

How to Backup Gmail Emails Locally

Next we have provided you two ways to implement Gmail local backup. One is to use Google's own Takeout function, and the other is to use professional email backup software. Let's see how to do it respectively.

#1. Backup Gmail Emails Locally via Google Takeout

We will use Google Takeout to get a copy of all your emails from Gmail. It doesn't matter what device you're using, as long as you have access to a web browser. Just follow the steps below to get started.

1. Open Gmail and login with Gmail email address and password.
2. On the dashboard that opens, click the Profile icon and select the Manage your Google Account option.

3. Select Data & personalization from the left menu.

4. In the Data and personalization Wizard, scroll down the page. Select Download your data and click on it.

5. Then the Google Takeout page will open, click the Deselect all button.

6. Now, scroll down the page and check the mail function. Tap on the option that All Mail data included.

7. Here you can choose to get a copy of all your emails, or select specific folders based on your preferences. Once you have finished making your selections, click OK at the bottom.

8. After that, scroll the page and tap on the Next step button. Now, you may need to choose a delivery method. By default, you will be emailed a download link for your Gmail data. Besides that, you can choose the maximum size of the downloadable file and then split it into multiple files. Click Create Export when you're ready.

9. Once the archive files have been created, download them to your local hard drive and use a file archiver like 7-zip to open it.

#2. Backup Gmail Emails to Local Drive Automatically

You can also use professional email backup software to help you back up your Gmail emails to local. AOMEI Backupper's "Outlook Backup" feature can help backup Outlook desktop side. Outlook desktop supports emails including Microsoft 365, Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, Exchange. So you can then use AOMEI Backupper to backup these emails.

You can start by seeing how to backup Gmail emails to hard drive locally using AOMEI Backupper. This software has a 30-day free trial period, during which you can try out its features before making a decision. First download and install it on your computer, if you are a Server user, you can try AOMEI Backupper Server.

When you add email accounts of third party email service providers like Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo to Outlook, you need to modify some settings on their corresponding web side. Here are the steps on how to modify Gmail IMAP when you add Gmail to desktop side of Outlook.

1. Go to https://mail.google.com.

2. Select the settings wheel and then select Settings.

3. Select Forwarding and POP/IMAP.

4. Under IMAP Access, make sure Enable IMAP is selected.

1. Add Gmail account in Outlook and close it. Then, open AOMEI Backupper Professional and click Backup and Outlook Backup.

2. Click Add Outlook Data and select the Gmail account you want to back up. Then click OK.

3. Select a local path to save all Gmail emails in Outlook.  

4. Then you can click Schedule Backup to enable backup frequency. You can choose to run this task daily, weekly or monthly. Be sure the option Wake the computer to run scheduled task is checked.

5. Once you have confirmed your settings, click Start Backup to back up Gmail locally.

✨ Tips: 

• Backup Scheme: It allows you to better organize your backup storage space with an efficient backup strategy. The software provides 3 common backup scenarios, including Full Backup, Incremental Backup, and Differential Backup.
• If you would like to restore the email backup, please refer to the feature Email Restore.
• If emails are set to be encrypted, they will need to be verified before they can be selected for backup.
• Currently, only Outlook 2007 and above are supported.

Final Words

This article provides you two effective ways to help you backup Gmail emails locally. With the backup, you don't need to worry about the problem of data loss due to various reasons. By comparison, AOMEI Backupper is more comprehensive and can provide different levels of security for your computer. Besides email backup, it also has features such as system backup and disk backup. Come and try it out!