GoldFynch Support

In this article, we will show you how to export emails from Gmail and then download them as PDF files. 

The process of exporting your emails from Gmail is linked to your Google account. Even if the only Google product that you use is Gmail, you will still have a Google account, and its username and password will be the same as your Gmail account.  

The whole process of converting your emails to PDF's and then downloading them can be split into 4 steps: 

1. Exporting emails from Gmail
2. Importing these emails to GoldFynch
3. Selecting the emails that you would like downloaded
4. Downloading the emails (as PDFs)

Exporting Emails from Gmail

Here the exported emails will be contained in an 'MBOX' file. This MBOX file will be compressed into a zip file to help reduce the size of the export. Don't worry if this sounds complicated - it won't be! Just follow these steps:

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

Step 2. Log into your Google account if you are not already logged into a Google session. The username and password for your Google account will be the same as your Gmail account.

Step 3. Click the 'Deselect all' button to deselect all the options.

Step 4. Scroll down to find Gmail is the list of applications and then check the checkbox against it. 

Step 5. Click on the 'All Mail data included' button to choose the emails you wish to export. You have 2 export options:

1. All emails - This will export all the emails in your mailbox including the attachments, trash, spam, etc. 
2. Export only specific labels - Labels are Google's folders and are pretty powerful

Step 6. Choose the labels you wish to include in your export and then click on OK.

Step 7. Scroll down to the bottom of the app list and then click on the 'Next Step' button.

Step 8. Choose the delivery method for the download link.

Step 9. Choose the "Export once" frequency for the export.

Step 10. Choose the ".zip" file type for the export.

Step 11. Choose the file size for the export. If you choose a zip file size that is smaller than the total amount of data you are exporting then the data will be split into multiple zip files. 

Step 12. Click on the Create Export button when all the selections have been made. Depending on the number of emails to be exported it might take a while. You will get a notification when the export is complete, along with a link to the exported zip file. Go ahead and download it.

Note: If you would like to validate your MBOX file before the next step you can view the emails without having to upload them using GoldFynch's MBOX Viewer. Learn how to use the MBOX Viewer here.

Importing Emails to GoldFynch

The next step in the process of converting your emails to PDFs is to import your emails to GoldFynch. To do that you will need to: 

Step 1. Login to your GoldFynch account. If you do not have an account, see how you can create one here.  

Step 2. Click on the case you wish to upload the emails to. If this is your first time logging into GoldFynch you will need to create a case. Click here to learn how to create a case.  

Step 3. Click on the 'Files' icon on the left pane to go to the files view. 

If you have not uploaded any files to your case, just drag-and-drop the files to the upload area of the overview page

Step 4. You can upload the zip file by following either of these two methods:

    Upload files method:

• Step a. Click on the 'Upload Files' button in the top-right corner of your screen.
  

• Step b. Navigate to the folder on your computer to where the zipped mbox is present and double click on the file.
• Step c. Click on the 'Begin Upload' button that appears on the Upload screen overlay.

    Drag-and-drop method

• Step a. Click on the zip file on your computer, drag it to the GoldFynch window of your browser, and release the button
• Step b. Click on the 'Begin Upload' button that appears on the Upload screen overlay

  
  

Once the zip file is uploaded it will be unzipped, and the emails (along with their attachments) that are contained in the mbox file will be extracted. Once the files are processed they will appear as a folder in your case. Learn more about viewing your files here.

Selecting the Emails to be downloaded

Once your emails have been uploaded to GoldFynch you will need to choose the ones you wish to be converted to PDFs. The selection of emails can be done in a two-step process. The first step ("A" found below) involves searching for and retrieving the emails to be converted and the second step ("B" found below) is to "tag" all the emails that have been selected. 

Note: 

• If you would like to convert all the emails that you have uploaded then you can skip this section and continue from the "Downloading the emails as PDFs" section
• If you do not have any specific criteria for selecting the emails then you can skip the first step and move on to tagging the files directly

A. Search for the emails you wish to convert to PDFs

There are two ways one can perform a search in GoldFynch. One is a "quick search" and the other is an "advanced search." 

• A quick search can be executed by entering the search criteria into the search bar found at the top of most of the GoldFynch app's screens. 
• An advanced search requires you to access the advanced search view. Advanced searches are good when you have multiple and complex conditions that will need to be used to retrieve the emails. Additionally, advanced searches can be saved for future reference.  

Executing a Quick Search

Quick searches are useful for "simple" search queries - usually single-term searches. For example, if you would like to retrieve all the emails from a particular email address. A quick search is the way to go.

You just need to type "from: <[email protected]>" in the search bar at the top of the page and then hit enter. For accurate results please type in the full email address) The other email metadata that you can use in a quick search are: To, Cc, Bcc, and subject.

Executing an Advanced Search 

Suppose you would like to search for all emails with a received date between 1/1/2006 and 12/31/2010 that contains the word 'content' in the body, then the advanced search is the way to go. 

The steps for this process are:

Step 1. Navigate to the Advanced Search View by clicking on the 'Advanced Search' icon in the left panel.

Step 2. Click on the 'Create New Search' button at the top of the screen or click on the 'Creating a new Advanced Search' hyperlink. It should open up a section like this:

Step 3. Click on the single condition bar present in the query builder area and enter 'content' in the value field.

Step 4. Click on the '+Click to add condition' to add another condition

Step 5. Click on the condition bar and:

1. Change the 'body' field to 'received-date' 
2. Select the >= operator 
3. Enter the date '01/01/2006' in the value field

    Your query builder should look like this now: 

Step 6. Drag and drop an "AND" query operator box over the received-date condition in the query builder area

Step 7. Add a second condition bar and: 

1. Change the 'body' field to 'received-date'
2. Select the <= operator
3. Enter the date '12/31/2010' in the value field

Step 8. Click on the "Run" button to execute the query. All the emails that match your search criteria will be populated on your screen

Note: You can save your search query for future reference by clicking on the save button at the top of the screen. Learn more about saving and loading searches here.

B. Tagging the emails that need to be converted

A tag is like a label attached to your documents for the purpose of easy identification and categorization. You can either tag all the emails you have uploaded or just the emails that are the results of a search. Both methods of tagging have been described below.

NOTE: If you want to download attachments of emails you are producing, select the "Whole family" options mentioned below.

Method 1. Tagging the emails that are a result of your search  

We will use the search results from the search created in the section above to see how we can tag the results of a search 

Step 1. After performing a search, click on the checkbox next to the search query

Step 2. (Optional) If you would like to deselect any of the listed files so as to exclude them from the tagging, click on the checkbox next to their names. 

Step 3. Click on the 'Tag' button that appears in the right action pane.

Step 4. Type out a new, unique tag name then click on it when it appears in the tag list, or click on an existing tag, or click on a quick tag. 

Step 5. Choose if you want the tag to be applied to the item only or to the entire family of each item. Learn more about tagging families here.

Step 6. Click on the Apply button

Method 2. Tagging the emails from the Doc view

Step 1. Navigate to the Files view by clicking on the 'Files' icon in the left pane. 

Step 2. Scroll through the list of files and select the ones you wish to tag by clicking on the checkbox against it. Alternatively, if you wish to select all displayed files and folders (and files within folders) click on the checkbox next to the 'Name' column at the top of the page. 

Step 3. Click on the 'Tag' button that appears in the right action pane.

Step 4. Type out a new, unique tag name then click on it when it appears in the tag list, or click on an existing tag, or click on a quick tag. 

Step 5. Choose if you want the tag to be applied to the item only or to the entire family of each item. Learn more about tagging file families here. 

Step 6. Click on the Apply button.

Downloading the emails as PDFs

Next, you will need to set the format that your PDF files are downloaded in. This will be done through GoldFynch's "Production" tool, which will put your PDFs together inside a zip file (referred to as the "production" below.) After that, all that's left will be to download the files!

A. Producing the emails as PDFs

Follow these steps to create a zip file for all the emails as PDFs in GoldFynch.

To begin, click on the production icon from the left menu, then click on the "Start a Production Wizard' button.

Step 1 of the Production Wizard: Give a name for the production

Step 2 of the Production Wizard: Select the listed tags that you applied to the files whose PDFs you want to download. These tags are the ones you applied to the emails in the previous section. Alternatively, if you do not select any tags all the emails will be included in the production.

Step 3 of the Production Wizard: Select the 'PDFs Only' option, then select the 'One PDF per document' option and then click on OK. This option will produce each email as a separate PDF.

Step 4 - 8 of the Production Wizard: Ignore all the options and settings, just click on the "OK" buttons.

Step 9 of the Production Wizard: Select the 'Original File names' options as the file naming convention for the production.

Step 10 of the Production Wizard: Review all the options specified and the files selected. Make changes by clicking on the edit icon(the pencil) against the step you wish to change in the right panel. Then click on the 'Produce' button. 

Once you click the Produce button you will receive a notification that the production request has been successfully placed. 

B. Downloading the emails

You can download the emails as PDFs from the 'Requested Productions" tab of the production view once the production is completed.

Step 1. Click on the 'Requested Productions' tab of the Productions view.

 Step 2. Click on the 'Completed' header text to sort by completion date. The completed status for your production will change from "in-progress" to the completion date once the production is completed. 

Step 3. Click on the download icon against the production's name to download the final production as a zip file. The download icon will be active once the production processing has been completed. 

The downloaded zip file will contain all the emails you have selected in PDF form.