How to Backup Gmail Account to An External Hard Drive Easily

Why save Gmail to a hard drive?

Gmail, a popular email service by Google, offers web and mobile access for storing personal information, and sending, and receiving emails. To prevent data loss, many users opt to back up Gmail emails to hard drives.

The main reasons for this are:

1. Offline Access: Users save Gmail emails to access them without an internet connection, along with their attachments.
2. Data Protection: Backup safeguards against unwanted threats or accidental email deletions, preventing data loss.
3.  Data Migration: When switching email clients, having a Gmail backup simplifies transferring account data.
4. Gmail Issues: Unstable Gmail features or account inaccessibility prompts users to back up their data.
5. Storage Space: If Gmail storage exceeds limits, users save emails externally to free up space.

Backing up Gmail emails ensures access, safeguards data, and addresses various scenarios that may affect email usage.

4 Methods to backup Gmail account to a hard drive

How do you backup Gmail to an external hard drive? Don’t hurry, here are 4 useful ways for you! You don’t need to try on one by one, instead, you can choose the one that suits you best!

Method 1. Save Gmail  account via Google Takeout

Step 1. Open Gmail and login with your Gmail email address and password.

Step 2. On the dashboard choose the Profile icon and select the Manage your Google Account.

Step 3. Select Data personalization from the left menu.

Step 4. Then in the Data and personalization section, scroll down the page. Select Download your data and click on it.

Step 5. Then in the pop-up Google Takeout page, click the Deselect all button.

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

Step 7. Then in the pop-up menu, uncheck the Include all messages in Mail checkbox. Select the below folder, and click on the OK button.

Step 8. After that, scroll the page and tap on the Next step button. Here, choose the file type, frequency, and destination section.

Step 9. Now click on the Create Export button and download the Archive files.

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

Method 2. Save Gmail emails as PDF Files

Step 1. Open Gmail and sign in with the required credentials (Gmail email account and password).

Step 2. Then locate the Inbox section, and you can choose the emails you want to save from the folder.

Step 3. Click on the Print All icon at the top right of your browser.

Tip: Here you can preview concrete messages on the selected email, like Destination, Pages, Layout, and Colour.

Step 4. Finally, click the Print button to start exporting the Gmail email.

Step 5. Then, a pop-up tab will open on your screen, enter the File Name, and press the Save button.

Step 6. After saving the email as a PDF, copy the email from your PC and paste it to the target external hard drive.

This is the simple way to backup Gmail to hard drive

Method 3. Backup Gmail emails via MS Outlook

For a lot of desktop email clients, Microsoft Outlook is more welcome and familiar. Additionally, this software can also back up Gmail to an external hard drive. Now please follow to read:

Part 1. You need to add your Gmail to the Outlook Desktop app first and also, make sure your external hard drive has been connected to your computer correctly.

Step 1. To save an email from MS Outlook, open the email and click File > Add Account.

Step 2. Enter your Gmail email account and click on Connect. Then, enter your Gmail email password, and press the Connect button again.

Now you must have successfully logged in to your Gmail email account on the Outlook desktop client. The next part will show you the whole backup process.

Part 2. Now follow the below tutorial to backup Gmail to a hard drive

Step 1. Click your Gmail on the left and then select Gmail emails that you want to save to an external hard drive.

Step 2. Navigate to File > Open & Export > Import & Export.

Step 3. Choose Export to a file and click Next.

Step 4. Select Outlook Data File (.pst), and click Next.

Step 5. Choose the Inbox folder to export from, also make sure you have ticked the Include subfolders checkbox and tap Next.

Step 6. Browse and choose your target external hard drive as the destination, and click Finish to backup Gmail emails to the USB flash drive.

Method 4.  Transfer via third-party software

The distinguished aspect of third-party software is that it can provide users with versatile features and enable users to customize email backup needs. One case in point is AOMEI Backupper Professional.

This software supports a wide range of Windows PC operating systems, including Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista. If you are a Server user, please try AOMEI Backupper Server.

♥It offers an Email Backup feature to back up various mail services, including Yahoo Mail, Gmail, iCloud Mail, Exchange, Outlook Mail, Zoho Mail, etc. For example, besides Gmail, you can backup Yahoo mail to hard drive as well.
♥It can create auto backups for emails with options like Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event triggers, or USB plug-in mode. Furthermore, you can schedule tasks to wake your computer at specific times for backup purposes.
♥You can create a full copy of your entire mailbox, or you can only backup the changes via incremental and differential backup, which can largely save your storage location.

Below is the full guide to saving all Gmail emails to hard drive, please download the below free link to have a try.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Backupper and then navigate to Backup> Email Backup.

Step 2. Click Add Email data to select the Gmail email you want to save.

Step 3. If you haven’t added your Gmail account before, please choose Add Mailbox to log in to your Gmail account and its authentification codes.

Step 4. Now, please click the triangle icon to expand the box, you need to choose Select a local path and then search for your target external hard drive.

Step 5. Confirm your settings and choose Start Backup to start backup Gmail to an external hard drive.

Conclusion

Backup Gmail account to an external hard drive can be performed in 4 feasible ways, namely via Google Takeout, export to PDF file, using MS Outlook, and through efficient third-party software, like AOMEI Backupper. You are free to choose any of them, which depends on you.

Notably, AOMEI Backupper is attractive for its user-friendly interface, especially convenient for non-technical users. You can download its free trial to have a try!