Export my UMD Gmail and preserve labels


NOTE: University personnel are prohibited from transferring, forwarding or sending UMD business email to or from a TERPmail or personal email account. For more information, read IT Standard Institutional Email (IT-14) and UMD Email Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) in the IT Library.

Export emails in MBOX format with Google Takeout

  1. Go to https://takeout.google.com.
  2. Authenticate with your UMD Directory ID and passphrase, if prompted.
  3. Under the Select data to include heading, select the Deselect all link.
  4. Scroll down to Mail and select its checkbox.
  5. Under the Mail heading, select the All Mail data included button. The Mail content options popover will appear.
  6. Uncheck the Include all messages in Mail checkbox.
  7. For each of the labels you wish to export, select its checkbox.
  8. Select the OK button to dismiss the popover.
  9. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Next step.
  10. Keep the default values in the Choose file type, frequency & destination section.
  11. Select Create export and wait for Google to send a download link via email.

Download the Takeout export

You will receive a Your Google data is ready to download email from Google.

  1. Open the Google Takeout email.
  2. Select the Download your files link. A Manage your exports webpage will open and the download will begin. Select the Download button if the download doesn't start automatically. A zip file will download.
  3. Extract the contents of the zip file. It should create a Takeout folder.
  4. Open the Takeout folder and open the Mail subfolder. You will see an MBOX file for each label you selected in Google Takeout. Each MBOX file will contain the messages from the corresponding Gmail label. You will need to import the MBOX file into an application, like Mozilla Thunderbird, to view the messages.

Import the MBOX files with Thunderbird

For instructions on setting up the Thunderbird mail application, installing the ImportExportTools add-on (needed to import MBOX files), and importing the MBOX files, see Import a MBOX File into Gmail with Thunderbird.