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Looking for Gmail backup solutions? Worried about the increasing

incidents of data breaches and security threats?

This article tells you everything you need to know about how to backup
and restore your Gmail.

If you are an IT administrator use our actionable tips, step-by-step

guides, and best practices to make sure your data is safe.

Version 1.0, updated on July 10, 2018

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Gmail Backup, An Overview .................................................................................... 3
Introduction to Gmail Backup ................................................................................................. 3
Gmail Backup Solutions ........................................................................................................11
Chapter 2 - Backup & Restore for Business ..............................................................................12
Backup Options for Businesses ............................................................................................12
Backup using built-in G Suite features (Basic Plan) ..........................................................12
Backup using Google Vault (Business & Enterprise Plans) ................................................13
Backup using third-party tools ..........................................................................................17
Restore Options for Your Gmail Backup ................................................................................21
Restore Using G Suite Features .........................................................................................21
Restore Using Google Vault and Migration Tool ................................................................23
Restore Using Third-Party Tools .......................................................................................32
Why Should You Use Third-Party Tools for Gmail Backup? ...............................................37
Gmail Backup Best Practices for IT Administrators...........................................................37
Chapter 3 - Backup & Restore for Personal Use .......................................................................38
Backup Options for Personal Use..........................................................................................38
Using Gmail Forwarding to Backup Gmail..........................................................................38
Using the POP Setting to Backup Gmail ............................................................................41
Using IMAP to Backup Gmail .............................................................................................46
Using Google Takeout to Backup Gmail ............................................................................49
Using Third-party Tools (GmVault) to Backup Gmail .........................................................53
Restore Options for Personal Use .........................................................................................57
Restore Using Out-of-the-box Gmail Features...................................................................57
Restore Using Google Apps – G Suite Migration Tool .......................................................58
Restore Using Third-Party Tools .......................................................................................58

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Chapter 1 - Gmail Backup, An Overview

Introduction to Gmail Backup

Gmail has become the defacto email backbone for millions of

individuals as well as organizations. Considering the need to protect
data, questions around Gmail backup is popular among individuals as
well as IT administrators who are scrambling to create a disaster
recovery system in place.

Let’s look at some key numbers that point to the importance of Gmail
backup.

● Gmail had over 1 billion monthly active users in early 2016 and the
number of businesses using G Suite in January 2017 was 3 Million
● This number saw a drastic increased in April 2018, with Gmail now
having more than1.4 billion users all over the world and G Suite
with 4 Million users

With so many people using Gmail for both their personal and business
use, it becomes necessary to take measures that will keep your data
safe and secure.

5 Compelling Reasons to Backup Your Gmail

Google has built up a reputation for delivering always on, cloud

applications for millions of users worldwide. They work with so much

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
predictability and reliability that some of us might be lulled into a false
sense of complacency.

Backing up your Gmail data is not an optional chore.

Here are five great reasons to back up your Gmail proactively.

1. Avoid data loss during Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)

M&As are crucial times for the companies. They are complex and time-
consuming affairs with several moving parts. One of the complexities
in an M&A is IT integration.

Because IT integration is inherently complex, the possibility of data loss

is also very high. According to Ansarada, data loss is one of the major
reasons why mergers and acquisitions fail. Some of these M&A deals
have been delayed to up to 12 days, causing significant financial loss.

IT integration during M&As could take several years to complete and

the expected synergies of a merger or acquisition are dependent on
how efficiently IT systems are integrated. Any misstep in IT integration
could result in data loss potentially derailing the merger or acquisition.

2. Hold and retain data for legal compliance & litigation purposes

Having a data backup and retention policy in place is a key requirement

for organizations when dealing with ligations. Organizations are legally
bound to put a hold on the data related to the litigation as well as retain
historical data or transaction logs for a specified period of time.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Regulations such as the Federal Rules for Civil Procedure and the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act make it mandatory for companies to retain
documents including electronically stored information (ESI) such as
emails.

Depending on the industry, this retention period could vary from 2-35
years. Failure to retain documents and data could result in adverse
consequences and penalties.

3. Protect yourself from insider threats and external attackers

Hacking attacks like phishing have become more frequent than ever.
According to Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), during the fourth
quarter of 2017, there has been a significant increase in phishing
attacks that targeted SaaS/webmail providers as well as cloud storage
and file-sharing sites.

The following graph from PhishLabs shows that in the United States,
the percentage of phishing sites hosted in the third quarter of 2017 was
double the percentage observed in the second quarter. The graph also
points to the alarming rate at which phishing attacks have increased
over the years.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
A careless click on an attachment that looks trustworthy could expose
all of your company’s sensitive information, allowing the hacker even to
delete critical company data. If you are a small business or a startup,
this could mean the end of your business.

Ransomware attacks like Cryptolocker could encrypt all the company’s

data stored in the drive. Without backup, accessing data could become
a nightmare.

Here is a real-life example of a Cryptolocker email demanding a

ransom.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Having a Gmail backup, therefore, could save a lot of time, money and
reputation.

That’s not all.

A disgruntled employee could delete data pertaining to the employer’s

intellectual property or an external attacker could hold the organization
at ransom through a phishing attack and threaten to delete company
data.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
If you think such attacks are only aimed at large organizations and
businesses, you are wrong!

Attackers are working tirelessly to get hold of your passwords, access

to your bank accounts, credit card information and any other personal
information you have stored in your Google Drive.

Having a Gmail backup is the least you could do to save yourselves

from disastrous data losses.

4. Don’t let accidental deletions stop you on your tracks

Believe it or not, Google occasionally suffers from outages that

adversely affect users who solely depend on the cloud-based service
for their business and personal use.

Need proof? Here you go.

On 12 September 2017, Google suffered a massive data center outage

that impacted millions of its Gmail users.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Google’s terms and conditions for Gmail users clearly mentions that
they DO NOT take responsibility for the loss of any data in the event of
an outage. All you will get from them is an apology for the
inconvenience caused.

Looks like protecting your data is solely your responsibility.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
5. Manage employee exits like a boss

You cannot expect someone to work for you forever, can you?

Exits are recurring events in any company. Therefore, when employees

leave the organization it is important to retain the company related data
associated with them.

One way to do this by continuing to keep their email license. However,

this means that their license would remain unutilized after their exit.
Instead, having a Gmail backup of the employee’s emails will not only
allow you to safely store your data but also let the license be reused by
another employee in the event of an exit.

Also, there are chances for a dissatisfied employee to delete critical

business emails before leaving the organization.

Medicaid Data Breach Case: In March 2017, an employee of the

Arkansas Department of Medicaid was fired. The day before her
dismissal, she forwarded confidential information to her personal email
account. This included information about 26,000 Medicaid recipients
spanning name, date of birth, medical procedure costs, diagnoses and
other confidential information. The breach, which occurred on March
23, 2017, was not discovered until August 7, 2017.

If she had also deleted confidential data instead of forwarding it to her

personal account and there was no backup, the issue would have been
catastrophic!

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
 Read the article where it was first published!

Click Here

Gmail Backup Solutions

Businesses: Let’s look at all the available options to backup your Gmail
data.

If you use G Suite (formerly called Google Apps for Work) to run your
business, your options to backup Gmail data are limited. Google does
not provide any backup solution for its G Suite users. However other
Google apps like Google Vault can be used to safeguard data to a
certain extent. You will definitely need a third-party application to
implement a full-fledged backup solution.

In this article, we will cover all these options in-depth.

Individuals: If you use Gmail for your personal use, there are multiple
ways in which you can backup and safeguard your Gmail data. Some
are straightforward with caveats. Few of them are complex that might
require technical help.

We will explain Gmail backup options using Gmail’s inbuilt Forwarding

option, Gmail’s inbuilt POP & IMAP setting, Google Takeout and third-
party solutions like GmVault.

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Chapter 2 - Backup & Restore for Business

Backup Options for Businesses

What will you do if one day you come to your office to find that all your
important data is lost, stolen or deleted? There is nothing you can do
about it; unless you already have a backup for your data. If you are
running a business, data loss is probably your worst nightmare.

Moreover, with G Suite all your data will be stored in the cloud making
collaboration easier at the same time more vulnerable. This calls for
additional protection measures to keep your data safe. G Suite offers
an array of applications and other features for its customers that vary
based on the subscription plan.

Backup using built-in G Suite features (Basic Plan)

For Basic plan subscribers, sadly, G Suite does not provide an admin-
level backup. On the bright side, employees can take backup
themselves using Google Takeout.

Pro Tip: Using Google Takeout shifts the responsibility of the backup
to the employees. Hence, this is not a viable Gmail backup solution for
any organization.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Backup using Google Vault (Business & Enterprise Plans)

For those subscribed to G Suite business or enterprise plans, you have

access to Google Vault to retain your data. Google Vault comes out-of-
the-box with G Suite.

You are not alone if you think Google Vault is a Gmail backup solution.
Functionally, Google Vault is actually an archiving solution!

Shocking, isn’t it?

Backup and Archive are often perceived to be analogous. In reality, both

serve different purposes and are contrasting in many ways.

Google Vault can archive the cloud data of the organization stored in
any of the below Google services:

● Gmail
● Hangouts
● Google Drive and Team Drive
● Google Groups

NOTE: Google Vault does not cover Google Calendars, Contacts and
Sites.

Google Vault does not make a second copy of the data. It just keeps
the existing data for a specific period of time or indefinitely.

For example, if an employee deletes a data from his account, it will be

still accessible to the administrator.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Therefore, Google Vault is mainly an archiving solution specially
designed for large businesses that need to search for data primarily for
litigation purposes. Its goal is neither to backup or restore data due to
data loss and malware attack.

Why should we talk about it here then?

That’s because organizations mistake Google Vault as a backup

solution.

What happens when an organization uses Google Vault as a backup

solution?

● Struggle to restore any lost data as Google Vault does not have a
built-in restore feature.
● Lose access to data because an account was deleted. When an
admin deletes a user from G Suite, all the data associated with the
user is permanently removed irrespective of your configurations.
● Lose data associated with services like Calendar, Contacts, and
Sites. Imagine losing all your meeting invites, access codes,
contacts. You can’t afford to miss an important call with your
client, can you?

How to use Google Vault?

Do you still want to use Google Vault as a backup solution?

1. If you are the admin, log in using your G Suite credentials using this
URL, https://ediscovery.google.com/. Once logged in, you will be taken
to the homepage of Google Vault.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
2. Create a retention by navigating to the retention module.

3. Click on the edit option on “mail”.

4. Set your default retention rule indefinitely (or for specific days).

Pro Tip: The Retention module is used to create retention policies.

Retention helps in retaining the organizational data (stored in Gmail,
Hangouts, Drive, and Groups) for as long as necessary even if a user
permanently deletes them.

Google Vault will now retain all your emails indefinitely, even when
employees delete it from their inbox and trash.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
 Be proactive!

Enable SysCloud Backup application

for an automated backup of your
Gmail Data.

Get 1TB Free Backup

----------------Trusted by -------------

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Backup using third-party tools

If you are looking for an easier and reliable way to backup your data and
effortlessly restore it, applications like SysCloud may be a good option
to evaluate. SysCloud uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer a fully
automated cloud to cloud backup and restore solution for Gmail.

Businesses can backup and restore their Gmail data for unlimited
domains and have access to the backup data with just a few clicks
using SysCloud’s Backup tool. Admins can define retention rules to
retain the backup of users’ email for an unlimited period if needed.

Here is how you can backup using SysCloud

1. Login to SysCloud’s application using this link – apps.syscloud.com

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
2. Create an account or enter your credentials. You are then taken to
the homepage of SysCloud Suite of applications.

3. Start backup by navigating to “Backup > Start Backup”.

4. Start the backup by specifying the data to be backed up. Example,

you can select either the entire domain, a set of users or specific
organizational units depending on the requirement.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
5. Next, select the accounts of the users you want to backup. Example:
accounts of specific users, admin, CEO.

6. Click on the “add” button.

7. The selected users on the left will be added to the backup list.

(By default, SysCloud’s backup solution backs up the account data of

Gmail, Drive, Sites, Calendar, and Contacts).

8. To have only Gmail backup; click on “Settings” and then “custom

configurations”.

Pro Tip: You can simply click on “Start Backup” if you want to proceed
with the default settings.

9. Select “Google Mail” and then on “Start Backup” button. SysCloud will
now begin to back up the selected user’s data.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
 10. To view the progress, click on the “Archive & Restore” option.

Pro Tip: The Archive and Restore page can also be accessed by
navigating to “Backup > Archive & Restore”

Now you have a second copy of your data safely stored on the cloud
and you can retrieve it when necessary.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Restore Options for Your Gmail Backup

Restore Using G Suite Features

Admin Restore

The deleted emails stay in the trash only for 30 days after which they
will be permanently deleted. In the case of accidental deletions, you
may realize it only after a long time, by then you may have lost the
emails forever. In such a situation your G Suite administrator can come
to your rescue.

How exactly?

To restore data of a particular user

1. Navigate to “users” in the admin console.

2. Select the specific user.

3. Click on the ellipsis on the right-hand side of the username.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
4. Click on the option “Restore Data”.

5. Choose the date range and the application to be restored.

Pro Tip: Admin can only restore emails which are permanently deleted
(removed from trash) within the last 25 days.
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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Restore Using Google Vault and Migration Tool

Though Google Vault is not intended to be a Gmail backup solution, it

can be used to retain, search and export organizational data. In case of
data loss, data can be restored (the hard way) using a third-party
application.

How to Search for Lost Emails from Google Vault?

To search for emails in Google Vault you should have already created a
matter. The matter is created to categorize your data.

To search for data on Google Vault

1. Click on the matter module from the side pane.

2. Click on the matter title.

3. Click on the “search” module from the left pane.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
4. Type in either the email address you need, sent date or any terms that
you are searching for.

5. Click on the “Search” button.

(The rest of the page has been intentionally left blank)

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
6. You can now export ALL your search results or if you want individual
emails you can print them separately by opening the mail and clicking
on “print”.

How to Export and Download your emails from Google Vault?

1. Click on the button “Export results”.

2. Name the file to be exported and specify the desired file format.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
3. Click on the “Start export” button.

NOTE: There are two formats available – MBOX and PST. While MBOX
is the standard format for emails, PST files are easier to view using
common email clients like Outlook. Hangout conversations can also be
exported in one of these formats.

4. Once the export is complete, download the emails by clicking on the

“download” link (file in zip format only).

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Note: The exported files are available for download only for 15 days
from the date it was exported.

How to Restore Emails Back to Your Account – The Hard Way

Restoring a critical email or a drive file back to its destination is not

possible with built-in features of Vault. However, you can export data
from Vault and restore it to its destination with the help of external third-
party applications.

Pro Tip: Restoring from Vault using a third-party application is very

cumbersome. A backup and restore solution would be a much more
intuitive and user-friendly option instead of Google Vault.

Restoring the Exported Emails using G Suite Migration Tool

To restore the emails that you exported and downloaded using Google
Vault back to your email account you need to use G Suite migration tool

1. Launch G Suite migration tool.

2. Provide the email address to which you want to restore your emails.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
3. G Suite migration tool would then prompt you for access to your
email account.

4. Once you provide access choose the option “From PST files” if you
have downloaded the emails in PST format.

Note: If the downloaded emails are in MBOX format, you will have to
convert them to PST format using third-party tools like “Softaken MBOX
to PST converter” and then migrate the data using G Suite Migration
tool.
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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
5. Choose the downloaded file from your desktop.

6. Open the files and choose the type of data to be migrated.

7. Choose “Email messages” option, as shown below.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
8. Click on “Migrate”.

Note: The migration process will take a few seconds or few hours
depending on the amount of data you migrate.

Boom! You have all your emails back where it should be.

9. Go back to the destination email to view the migrated emails.

Pro Tip: The migration tool creates a label and imports the emails under
them.
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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
 Do you know?
est of the page has been intentionally left blank)

Google does not take responsibility

for Data loss due to human error.

Get 1 TB Free Backup

Restoring lost data can be as

easy as pie!
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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Restore Using Third-Party Tools

Restoring lost or deleted emails using third-party applications is easy

and time-saving. Be it a specific email or the entire domain, Gmail
restore can be done in just a single or a few clicks.

Here we will show you how to restore your data using SysCloud.

1. Open the SysCloud application.

2. Navigate to “Backup > Archive & Restore”.

3. Click on “Archive & Restore”.

4. You will find all the users who have been backed up being listed.

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5. Click on the username that needs to be restored.

6. Next, the page will list all the data of the user, including his emails
which have been backed up.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
7. SysCloud allows you to either restore all the emails or an email of the
user.

To restore all the emails:

1. Click on the “Restore” option.

2. Choose “All” from the Dropbox.

3. Type in the email account to be which it has to be restored.

Pro Tip: You can restore the data back to the user’s account or to
another account (preferably the manager’s account in case the
employee is leaving the company).

4. Click on “custom label” option if you want to have a new label created
that specifies the date on which you restored the mail example:
“Restored on <Date>” (optional).

5. Click on “Restore”.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
All the emails are now restored to the preferred account.

To restore a specific email:

Pro Tip: The admin can search for a particular email which contains the
keyword example “workflow”.

1. Select the email(s) to be restored.

2. Click on the “Restore” option.

3. Click on the “selected items”.

4. Type in the email account to be which it has to be restored.

5. Click on “custom label” option if you want to have a new label created
that specifies the date on which you restored the mail (optional).

6. Click on “Restore”.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
The selected emails are now restored to the preferred account.

The admin can check the progress of restore in the restore report.

(The rest of the page has been intentionally left blank)

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Why Should You Use Third-Party Tools for Gmail Backup?

Using third-party tools like SysCloud, you can:

● Directly restore the entire Gmail account or specific emails back

to the respective inbox without the hassle of exporting and
importing.
● Keep a safe copy of organizational data even after the user
accounts are deleted; saving on license costs.
● Avoid making mistakes as the backup tools are user-friendly and
intuitive.
● Save time in managing backup for large teams.
● Gain added data security because of increased admin control and
secure backup data storage locations.

Gmail Backup Best Practices for IT Administrators

● Use a long password containing uppercase and special

characters; ideally twelve or more characters long.
● Refrain from documenting your password. If necessary, use a
password manager that enables encryption.
● Enable multi-step authentication.
● Setup recovery options in case of password loss through
secondary email or a mobile number.
● Enhancing email security by authenticating email with DKIM,
authorizing senders with SPF and preventing outgoing spam with
DMARC to prevent spoofing.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
 ● Schedule your Gmail backup automatically or manually (possible
using applications like SysCloud).
● Manually backup emails whenever required (during peak season,
critical project delivery).
● Manage employee exists efficiently. Keep a back up of all the data
associated with the employee that is leaving and delete the user
to save license cost.
● Always monitor your Gmail backup storage to make sure your
backup subscription limits are managed properly.

Chapter 3 - Backup & Restore for Personal

Use

Backup Options for Personal Use

Personal users can backup Gmail data using Gmail forwarding, POP or
IMAP settings.

Using Gmail Forwarding to Backup Gmail

The simplest way to have a Gmail backup is to automatically forward

them to another email account. This way even if you lose your emails
in one account, it will be safe in an alternate account.

Google has an inbuilt feature to automatically forward your emails.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Here is an example:

1. Login to your Gmail and go to “settings”. You will find an option called
“Forwarding and POP/IMAP”.

2. Then click on the “Add a forwarding address” option and enter your
destination email id.

3. A pop-up will appear for confirmation and upon clicking the “proceed”
button a confirmation code will be sent to your destination mail.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
4. Copy the code from your destination email.

5. Go back to “Settings” of your primary email.

6. You will see an option in the forwarding menu asking you to enter the
confirmation code.

7. Enter the confirmation code and verify the email address.

8. This only adds your destination email to the primary id.

9. To enable forwarding, select the “forward a copy of incoming mail”

option.

10. You can add multiple emails to forwarding and customize your
options.

11. If you want to forward emails received only from a specific person
or the emails that contain a particular word/subject, you can do so by
customizing the forwarding option.
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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
NOTE: Only those emails received after enabling the forwarding option
will be seen in the destination email account.

Using the POP Setting to Backup Gmail

Post Office Protocol (POP) is an inbuilt feature of Gmail which lets you
download your email to an email client (eg. Microsoft Outlook). Once it
is enabled, all important emails can be downloaded to an email client
as a second copy. This copy will also available to you offline. Deleting
an email from your Gmail does not delete the copy downloaded to the
email client.

POP was initially created to retrieve emails from Gmail server to email
clients like outlook and not for creating second copies of emails. Even
so, if you want to keep a second copy (also offline) of your emails to
protect yourself against data loss, POP will be a good option.

How to enable POP?

1. Navigate to “Settings” and select “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” option.

2. Enable POP by choosing the radio button for “Enable POP for all mail”
or “Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on” according to your
need.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Note: To download your emails, you need to give login permission to
email clients.

3. To give login permission to email clients, navigate to My Account and

select “Apps with account access” option and enable “Allow less secure
apps”.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Note: To enable this option, you have to disable two-factor
authentication for your Gmail if you have enabled it. This compromises
the security of your Gmail account and is ideally not recommended by
Google.

Here is how you do it for Outlook:

4. After enabling POP in Gmail security settings, you can configure your
email client (Microsoft Outlook) to download your emails.

5. You can launch Outlook and select add account by clicking on the
“Info” option in the File tab.

6. After adding an account, Outlook will take you to the configuration

wizard. Enable the checkbox “Let me set up my account manually” to
configure POP.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
7. Select “POP” from the account type options that appear on the
screen.

8. Next, make sure you give the incoming mail server as

“pop.gmail.com”, port as “995”, outgoing mail server as
“smtp.gmail.com” and port as “465”.

9. Click “Next” option.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
10. Enter the password for your Gmail account.

11. Now your email client account is set up.

12. Click on the “Send/Receive All Folders’’ option to download all your
emails.

13. This will generate a second copy of your emails.

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NOTE: A new email received in your Gmail account after enabling POP
will not be automatically available in your email client. The emails
should be downloaded manually during regular intervals by clicking the
“Send/Receive All Folders’’ option.

Since POP does not sync your Gmail with your email client, Google
introduced a new feature called IMAP.

Using IMAP to Backup Gmail

Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an alternate method to

access your emails, even offline. Unlike POP, IMAP will synchronize
your emails from Gmail with your email clients. Changes made in your
Gmail will be reflected in the corresponding email client and vice versa.

How to enable IMAP?

1. Navigate to “Settings” and click on the “Forwarding and

POP/IMAP” option.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
2. Click on the radio button “Enable IMAP”.

3. Give login permission for email clients by navigating to My Account

and clicking on “Apps with account access” and switching on “Allow less
secure apps” (Similar to POP).

Note: To enable this option, you have to disable two-factor

authentication for your Gmail account (if you have already enabled it).
This compromises the security of your Gmail account.

4. Next, enter your login credentials in your email client to sync the
emails.

Pro Tip: Since IMAP is the default protocol in Gmail, it is not required to
click on “Let me set up my account manually” unlike POP.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Once the credentials are entered, you are good to go.

After setting up your account, all your emails get downloaded

automatically and is in sync with Gmail, as shown below.

Changes made to your Gmail account will be reflected in your email

client, as long as you are connected to the Internet. IMAP becomes a

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
useful backup option mostly in situations where you lose account
access when you go offline, forget the password or your account is
hacked.

Using Google Takeout to Backup Gmail

Now, what if you want to access your emails offline without giving login
access to another service? Or what if you just want to download all your
emails to a storage device like a pen drive?

You can rely on Google Takeout, an app that lets you export your data
to a downloadable file(zip). This gives you more control over your data.

● To access Takeout, you can either use this link

https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout or if you have
already logged into your Gmail account, click on “My Account >
Personal & Privacy > Control your content > Create Archive”.

Pro Tip: Takeout allows you to have not just Gmail backup but backup
all Google apps. Since we are only dealing with Gmail backup, select
only the Gmail option.

How to enable Takeout?

1. Enable the Gmail option on the Takeout screen.

2. If needed, you can also choose what to download from your Gmail.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
3. After customizing your options click on “Next” to choose your:

File Type: You can choose your desired file format as your destination
file type

Archive Size: You can select the maximum size for your download (if
the size is greater than 2GB then it will be stored in multiple files)

Delivery Method: This allows you to choose your delivery method

4. Click on “Create Archive” button.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
5. Once you click “Create Archive”, data is organized for the user to
download it to a storage device (computer, USB device etc). You will
receive an email once the download is complete.

6. Locate the email sent to your Gmail account and click on the
“Download archive” button.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
7. Clicking on Download archive will redirect you to the sign in page.

8. Next, sign in to verify your account.

9. Verifying your account will automatically download your data to your

desired hardware.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
NOTE: The downloaded files will be available for only a week in your
Takeout archive and will be automatically deleted after a week.

After the download, the file will be stored in MBOX format which can be
viewed using the desktop email client Thunderbird.

If you are using Microsoft Outlook as your email client, use a converter
that converts MBOX files to PST files to view your downloaded
document.

Using Third-party Tools (GmVault) to Backup Gmail

You can also use a third-party tool to download and store your emails
from Gmail. GmVault is an open source command line tool for having
Gmail backup.

The application can be downloaded fromhttp://gmvault.org/. For quick

installation, click on http://gmvault.org/install.html#quickstart

Note: You will need a basic knowledge in using command line tools to
use GmVault.

Launch the tool by clicking the GmVault icon on your desktop.

How to use GmVault?

1. Open the GmVault application.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
2. You can start backup giving the command ‘gmvault sync (your email
id)’

for example, gmvault sync [email protected]

3. Press enter after giving the command.

4. The tool then automatically creates a folder in your computer where

your backups will be stored.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
5. Press enter and you will now be redirected to Google login page.

6. Sign in using your credentials.

7. Next, GmVault will ask your permission to access your Gmail

account.

8. After giving permission it will generate a key, as shown below.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
9. Copy the authentication key from your Gmail and paste it on
GmVault.

10. Press enter.

11. After pressing enter, GmVault will backup all your emails and chat
transcripts to the above-mentioned folder.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Pro Tip: To keep your Gmail backup up to date, you can also set
GmVault to run regularly. This regular backup can be customized based
on your requirement.

If you have enabled automatic backup with GmVault your Gmail backup
will also be up to date. If you need help in using GmVault type the
command: “gmvault – help” or by click on the following link,
http://gmvault.org/in_depth.html.

NOTE: This is a time-consuming activity and would depend on the

number of emails you have in your account. You can either set GmVault
to automatically backup your emails at regular intervals or you can do
it manually.

Restore Options for Personal Use

Restore Using Out-of-the-box Gmail Features

Retrieve from trash

In case of accidental deletion, you can easily restore the deleted mail
from your trash.

1. Navigate to “Trash”.

2. Select the mail.

3. Choose “Move to inbox”.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
But emails from trash will be permanently deleted after 30 days. If you
forget to restore it from trash and you don’t have additional backup
options, you will lose your emails forever.

Restore Using Google Apps – G Suite Migration Tool

If you have exported your emails and stored it as a backup, you can use
G Suite Migration tool to restore your data.

To find out how to use G Suite Migration Tool refer to the Restore
section for Business users above.

Restore Using Third-Party Tools

● Thunderbird
● GmVault

Thunderbird

If you have exported your Gmail data to your email client or storage
device, you can also use Thunderbird to restore your lost emails back
to your account.

Thunderbird is an email client that lets you move already backed up

emails back to your account.

Those emails backed up in Mbox format can be restored using the

following steps:

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
1. Install Thunderbird desktop client from,
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/channel/ and launch the
application.

2. You will now see a pop-up page.

3. Add your email account to which you want to restore the data, as
shown below.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
NOTE: IMAP should be enabled in the preferred email account to allow
Thunderbird to sync the accounts for restoration. Therefore, enable
IMAP for your account BEFORE adding it to Thunderbird.

4. Click on the IMAP radio button and “Done”.

5. Click on the hamburger menu shown below.

6. Select the “Add-ons” option.

7. Next, click on ‘’See all” on the upper right corner on the next screen
that appears.

(The rest of the page has been intentionally left blank)

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
8. Type in “Import Export tool”, in the search tab in the next screen.

9. Next, click on “Add to Thunderbird” and allow it to install

ImportExportTools add-on.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
After this, restart Thunderbird to get the add-on installed.

10. Click on “Restart Now” button on the tab that pops-up on top of the
page.

11. After restarting it will lead you to the first page of Thunderbird as
shown below.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
12. Right click on “Local folders” in the left panel and select “Import-
export tools > Import mbox files”.

13. Once you click on “Import mbox files” the following pop-up appears.

14. Choose the first radio button, “Import directly one or more mbox
files” and click “Ok” to select your Mbox file from the destination.

15. From the next page, choose the Mbox file you want to restore.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
16. The selected file(s) is directly added to the Thunderbird local folder,
as shown below.

Now to restore all the emails to your account from Thunderbird:

17. Select all the imported emails from Thunderbird.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
18. Then right-click on the selected email >move to > (select your
destination email address) > select “Inbox” or any other label” as shown
below.

19. Now you have successfully restored all your emails to the preferred
Gmail account.

(The rest of the page has been intentionally left blank)

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
GmVault

To restore email backup using GmVault, follow these steps:

1. Use the command “gmvault restore (your email address)”

Example: gmvault restore [email protected]

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
2. Press enter to start the restore process.

3. You have Now successfully restored all your emails back to your
Gmail inbox as shown below.

Gmail offers tremendous value to both G Suite users in enterprises as

well as for consumers who use the free Gmail service. With over 1.2
billion users, a lot of our data is riding on the Gmail infrastructure.

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss
Gmail has become an inevitable part of our daily lives both at work and
at home. While Gmail has democratized enterprise-grade email
infrastructure, increased reliance on Gmail by companies and
individuals poses a significant risk in terms of accidental deletions and
other types of data loss. Hence, Gmail backup has become a necessity.

However, Google has not paid enough attention to provide simple and
effective backup solutions for Gmail. One of the reasons could be the
immense confidence that Google has in delivering a stable cloud
infrastructure to run Gmail.

That leaves us with no option but to rely on a third-party service provider

to backup our Gmail data. After all, no one knows when we need a
backup!

For more information, please contact us at

[email protected]
Or Visit us at

www.syscloud.com

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Gmail Backup – Step-by-step Guide to Save You from Crippling Data Loss