At first glance, the whole purpose of using Gmail is to keep all your email safe in the cloud. However, it also means that it is at risk of being hacked or losing access. That’s why you need to back up your Gmail periodically.
Don’t Lose Gmail Data on Your Mac | Alexey Boldin / Shutterstock.com
What could go wrong?
The obvious problem is if someone gets your password. That could be through phishing or social engineering. Sometimes it’s because you’ve used the same password in multiple places. Two-factor authentication tools like Google Authenticator help prevent problems, but they’re not perfect.
Don’t ignore the second factor! Check out our guide to setting up 2-factor authentication and some tips on setting up Google Authenticator, or use an alternative like Authy.
Other times, you may have accidentally deleted some content and then regret it. If you use Gmail at school or work, you may lose access to your account if you graduate or change jobs. That’s why you need to back it up. If you use an email client on your Mac, that email is backed up.
Free and cumbersome way: Google Takeout
We’ve covered Google Takeout before. Go to the Download your data page and select your Mail account. I recommend downloading all your data. Additional backups are always a good thing. Most people can use the .zip format. If your data takes up more than 2 Gig, Google will split it into multiple files. The .TGZ or .TAR format allows for larger files.
How do you unzip a .TAR or .TGZ file? You will need an archiving program. We have a list of the top free programs.
When your files are ready to download, Google will send you a link. Optionally, you can add files to your Google Drive. I don’t recommend doing that because it won’t protect you if you get locked out of your account. That strategy only protects against accidental deletion of emails.
If you have multiple Gmail accounts, you will need a Takeout for each account. This is cheap and effective, but it requires too much manual labor every time you want to backup.
Free and Easy Way: Enable POP . Access
Using an email client to back up your email might seem counter-intuitive, but it’s an easy and free way to back up your Gmail. When you download your email to the mail client, it is backed up along with other data on your Mac. It also gives you offline access to your email.
To enable POP access, click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the Gmail page in your browser. Go to Pop Forwarding and Access and select Enable POP for all messages. Then click Configure your email client to learn how to enable support for your POP client.
I turn off new email notifications because my goal is not to read emails in the client, but just to backup emails. One benefit of this strategy is that it allows you to use multiple Gmail accounts and messages show up in Spotlight searches.
What is the difference between POP and IMAP? Read our guide explaining the difference.
Automatic and elegant way: CloudPull
I have been using CloudPull for years and it works perfectly. It’s $24.99, but they offer a 30-day free trial. After launching the program, you will add your Gmail address. You will then enter your name and password.
If you have two-factor authentication enabled, you will need to verify your account. Then give CloudPull permission to access your Gmail account.
Then it starts downloading all your Gmail messages. It backs up your emails in the background. You can also ask it to back up other Google data like contacts, calendars, and drives.
If you want to tweak some backup options, CloudPull offers some additional features once you sign up. The first time you run the program, it will try to download all new messages. That can take time and increase your bandwidth.
I recommend setting the Messages throttling to Preserve and Backup every hour until the initial backup is complete. That helps the messages drip into your system without slowing down your browser.
Another option: We’ve covered GoodSync before, and that program also supports local backups of Google data.
Once you’ve done that initial backup, I’d recommend asking it to do a daily backup. You can’t specify when that backup is taken, which is annoying. It only takes a few minutes to back up the changes.
Regardless of which method you choose, don’t rely on Gmail to back up your data. Take control of your data and back it up yourself.
Categories: How to
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