Permanently saving Gmail to macOS Mail?

Posted:
in Genius Bar
I am currently using the free edition of Google's G Suite for custom-domain email. However, Google is discontinuing this product and I do not wish to subscribe to their paid replacement plan. (I'm going to switch over to iCloud+ which now has support for custom domains!)

As such, I want to download all of my G Suite emails from Google's cloud, into a local mailbox on my macOS' Mail application, so that I don't lose the messages when the G Suite account is closed.

How do I do this?

I can currently connect to my G Suite email via the macOS Mail app, just like one would for a normal Gmail account. I assume this uses IMAP and the messages are NOT all stored on my own Mac, but are in the cloud only. I want to save them all locally, so that I have them forever.

Somebody recommend Google Takeout, which exports all your mail to MBOX files, which you then download, and then can import back into macOS Mail. I will try this.

Is there another way? Another idea I was thinking:

1) complete the MX record domain change to get my custom email going to iCloud+
2) open Mail for my iCloud account
3) add my G Suite account to Mail (as it already is)
4) Drag-and-drop the G Suite account mail/folders to the iCloud account folders

...may work?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 13,068member
    Unfortunately the Google Takeout tool's MBOX export is simple one giant folder of messages -- no label/folder designations are preserved. This is...less than useful.

  • Reply 2 of 2
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 13,068member

    New solution I'm doing now:

    1) Add iCloud account in Mail

    2) Add G Suite account in Mail

    3) Drag-and-drop folders & messages from G Suite folders into iCloud folders

    4) complete the MX record domain change to get my custom email going to iCloud+

    ...this seems easier than any further messing around w/ Takeout or MBOX tools.

    muthuk_vanalingam
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