Export Gmail with Google Takeout

Before you start

• You need the password (and 2-step verification device) for the Google account.
• Check you have enough free disk space: the download is roughly the size of the storage Gmail uses, shown at the bottom of the Gmail inbox and at one.google.com/storage.
• Google Workspace (work or school) accounts: your administrator must allow Takeout. If Mail is missing or greyed out in Takeout, ask them to enable it under Admin console → Apps → Additional Google services → Google Takeout.

Step 1: Request the export

1. Go to takeout.google.com and make sure you are signed in to the right account (check the avatar in the top-right corner).
2. Under Select data to include, click Deselect all. Takeout selects every Google product by default, which makes the export huge and slow.
3. Scroll down to Mail and tick its checkbox.
4. Optional: click All Mail data included to export only some labels. Untick Include all messages in Mail and pick the labels you want. Leave it as it is to export everything.
5. Optional: Multiple formats shows the format; Mail is always exported as MBOX, which is what you want.
6. Scroll to the bottom and click Next step.

Step 2: Choose how to receive it

1. Destination: Send download link via email is the simplest. You can also add the archive to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box, but it will count against that storage.
2. Frequency: choose Export once.
3. File type: .zip opens with a double-click on Windows and macOS. .tgz handles very large files better but needs a tool such as 7-Zip on Windows.
4. File size: pick 50 GB. Takeout splits the export into several archives of this size; choosing the largest size keeps the number of files down.
5. Click Create export.

Step 3: Download and extract

1. Open the email from Google (subject similar to “Your Google data is ready to download”) and click Download your files. Google may ask you to sign in again.
2. Download every part listed. Large exports are split into files such as takeout-…-001.zip, -002.zip, and so on.
3. Extract the archive(s). On Windows, right-click → Extract All…; on a Mac, double-click the file.
4. Open the extracted Takeout folder, then Mail. Inside you will find All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox. This single file contains all of your mail.

Step 4: Convert to PST

1. Create a MoveMyInbox account (or log in) and click New conversion.
2. Drag All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox onto the upload area, or click to choose it. The price for its size is shown straight away.
3. Under Folders, choose Use Gmail labels.
4. Upload, pay if needed, and download the PST when the conversion is finished.

How Gmail labels become Outlook folders

Gmail doesn’t have folders: a message can carry several labels. Takeout records them in an X-Gmail-Labels header on every message. With the Gmail labels mode, we read that header and place each message as follows:

Each message is stored once, so your PST doesn’t fill up with duplicates. If a message has several labels, the first match in the table wins: Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Spam and Trash come first, then your own labels. Gmail’s system labels such as “Important”, “Starred”, “Opened” and the “Category …” tabs never become folders. Instead, “Unread” and “Starred” are carried over as Outlook’s unread and flagged status.

Next step

When your PST is ready, follow our guide to import a PST into Outlook.