One of the more frequent questions that we get, is how emails can be extracted from Gmail. This is probably because there isn't an explicit "export" option within the Gmail web interface. Google allows you to export emails to Mbox format which we support at GoldFynch.


Exporting emails from Google is linked to your Google account. Even if email, is the only Google product you use you will still have to export through your Google account. In case you have never used your Google account, the username and password are the same as your Gmail account. 


Step 1: Open your browser and navigate to http://www.google.com/takeout (or just click this link)


Step 2: Log in to your Google account using the same username and password as your Gmail account. You can skip this step if you are already logged in.


Step 3: The Google Takeout screen will be displayed with the list of all the Google products. The screen will look similar to the image below



Step 4: Click the “Deselect all” button at the top right, so everything gets de-selected


Step 5: Scroll down to find Gmail and then check the checkbox against it  


Step 6. Click on the 'All Mail data included' button to choose the emails you wish to export. You can either export all emails (includes attachments, trash, spam, etc) or only emails associated with specific labels. Labels are Google's folders and are pretty powerful. For example, you can run a search in Gmail and select all results to be tagged under a label.


Step 7. Choose the labels you wish to include in your export and then click on OK


Step 8. Scroll down to the bottom of the app list and then click on the 'Next Step' button


The next step of the setup process requires you to choose the file type and size for the export, the frequency of the export and the delivery method 

Step 9. Choose the delivery method for the download link by clicking on the dropdown. The different options are:

  • Send a download link via email - Once the export is complete you will receive a download link via email and this link will be valid for a week.
  • Add the export to Google Drive
  • Add the export to Dropbox 
  • Add the export to OneDrive  
  • Add the export to Box

If you opted for any one of the cloud storage apps, once the export is complete the files will be uploaded to the corresponding storage app and you will receive an email with the location.


Step 10. Choose the "Export once" frequency 


Step 11. Choose the .zip file type for the export


Step 12. Choose the file size for the export. Exports larger than the selected size will be split into multiple files.


Step 13. Click the Create Export button. Depending on the amount of email to be exported it might take a while. You will get a notification when the export is complete, along with a link. The link is to a zip file.


Once you have downloaded the zip file, just drag and drop directly into GoldFynch, which will take care of unzipping the file. If your file is password protected, you will need to enter it.



Reclaiming space with the Reclaim Space feature. Once the processing is complete, you may want to delete the original "container" files that continue to take up space in your case in addition to the volume of the extracted files.   Container files such as ZIP, MBOX, or PST no longer need to be kept once the files are extracted, and can be removed from the case by clicking on the "Reclaim..." button, which can be found on the Overview page.  You can read more about how to Reclaim Space here.

On the overview page click on "Reclaim"


Shoot us an email at support@goldfynch.com if you have any questions.