Export Gmail Emails to MBOX With Attachment and Headers

Written By

Nick Rogers

Published On

January 7th, 2025

Reading Time

7 Minutes Reading

Overview: In this article, we will teach you the easiest methods to export Gmail emails to MBOX. Here, we will explain how to manually save Gmail messages in MBOX to local storage and what the alternative fast ways to accomplish the job.

Gmail is very popular and feature rich email service. From school student to working professions, everyone uses it because of the advanced and most useful functionalities compared to all other email services. Its revolutionary email search function, free storage capacity and integration with other Google services such as Google Docs, Drive and Calendar greatly attract users.

MBOX, on the other hand, is a file format widely supported by a wide range of email clients such as Thunderbird. These are offline files that can also be used to keep local copies of your Gmail emails. We’ve broken down some of the great benefits of choosing MBOX to keep Gmail emails locally; you can read them.

Essentials Reasons to Export Gmail to MBOX File Format

• Insufficient space, data theft, or server failure can prevent you from accessing emails in Gmail. Having Gmail in MBOX as a backup can help you deal with such a situation.
• Keeping your Gmail emails in MBOX allows you to access them offline. MBOX is offline email file and can be opened using free and open source email clients.
• MBOX files support cross-platform. You can open them on Windows as well as macOS. Hence exporting Gmail to MBOX will not make the system dependent on accessing emails.
• An MBOX stores email in a plain text file. Because it is a text-based format, it is less susceptible to corruption compared to binary formats, ensuring better data integrity over time.
• MBOX files can store large amounts of email messages efficiently. Hence creating a single MBOX file from multiple Gmail data can make it suitable for sharing and long term archiving.

These are the basic benefits of keeping Gmail emails as MBOX file. Now, let’s take a look at the top solutions one by one to export emails from Gmail in MBOX free.

How Do i Archive Gmail in MBOX?

There are two basic ways to export Gmail emails to MBOX. You can either use Google’s manual Takeout tool or the professional automatic tool. Both strategies are suitable for exporting big data but their applications are different.

We will explain both methods in detail step by step below. Please review them and decide which one is most suitable for you to get the job done.

Manual Methods to Export Gmail Emails to MBOX 

In the manual way, you need to use the Google Takeout function. With this Google tool, you can quickly and free convert all your Gmail emails to MBOX with all associated data. Check-out all the steps below.

• First; open Google Takeout using with the link https://myaccount.google.com.
• Then, move to the “Data and Privacy” option.
• Select “Download or delete your data” and then “Download your data“
• Now, you should deselect all and select only “Mail” option and then press Next.
• At last, select file type, frequency and destination and then create Export.

All of your Gmail mailboxes will now save in the MBOX format. This method is although good what have some drawbacks which you must review before using it.

Limitation of the Manual Method

• This process can take a long time. The takeout itself says data export can take hours or days.
• You don’t get any option to transfer Gmail to MBOX with specific folders.
• The process may get hit by internet connectivity and may result in data loss.
• Due to Internet irregularities, the export may stop and you’ll need to repeat the process again.

Don’t worry about these drawbacks, we have a solution to overcome them. Please refer to the below method to export Gmail to MBOX without any hurdle.

Steps to Transfer Batch Gmail Mailboxes to MBOX 

• Download, install and open the 4n6 software on your computer.
  
• Click the Open menu, and then Choose Add Account option from the list.
  
• Enter the login credentials of your Gmail account and click Add.
  
• This software will instantly load Gmail folders on the left panel.
  
• Now, click Export and choose MBOX as the file saving option.
  
• Check the required folders from the left panel, choose destination path, and click Save button.
  

The application starts exporting Gmail emails to MBOX format. You can see the live working status on your software screen. When the procedure is finished, you will get a notification indicating its completion.

That’s it! This is how to use the automatic tool to export Gmail to MBOX, which simply seems much easier than the manual method. This tool is feature-rich and provides you with many tools to get the desired result. Please learn more about this utility by referring to its features below.

Features of the Expert Software

• Software allows you to export Gmail emails to MBOX along with all headers and attachments.
• It allows you to export all or specific Gmail mailboxes to MBOX file format.
• You don’t need to install MBOX supportive application to perform the conversion process.
• During the email transfer from Gmail account to MBOX, this utility maintains all the properties.
• You can choose the required destination path where you need to save the resultant files.
• You can export Gmail to MBOX with this tool on Windows 11, Windows 10, and earlier edition.

Author’s Suggestion 

In this article we have explained how to use Google Takeout and a specialized tool to export Gmail emails to MBOX. You should use Takeout tool if you have enough time and want to export complete data without selecting important one. On the other hand, if you want to quickly archive Gmail in MBOX while selecting the preferred emails, we suggest you use the professional software. You can review both the methods given to understand which one works best for you.