Step by step guide to backing up your Gmail contacts and email
If you are using Gmail as your main email program you may think that because it is already in the Cloud there is no need to back it up. You’d be wrong, as the recent Google Gmail issue recently confirmed. You should still have your contacts and emails backed up to some other location.
Here’s the easy instructions to backup your Gmail contacts:
- Sign in to Gmail and click Contacts along the side of your Gmail page.
- From the More actions drop-down menu along the top, select Export….
- Choose whether to export all contacts or only one group and select the format in which you’d like to export your contacts’ information, then click Export.
- In the new Save window that opens, choose Save to Disk then click OK.
- Select a location to save your file, and click OK.
Instructions to Backup Gmail Messages:
To backup all your Gmail messages you need to have a local email client (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc) and then setup Gmail to download your email to that client. From there you can use the backup instructions for that client under this Email Software section.
Configure Gmail to download your email
- Sign in to Gmail.
- Click Settings at the top of the page, and open the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
- Select Enable IMAP for all mail (even mail that’s already been downloaded).
- Click Save Changes.
- Open the local email client you’ve configured for Gmail, and check for new messages.
Note: Gmail messages may be downloaded in batches, so it may take time for everything to appear in your mail client.
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