Guides · 16 articles
Export and save email
How to get your mail out of Gmail or Outlook and onto your own disk, and what each way of exporting gives you.
How to Download Your Outlook Emails
To download Outlook email, first decide whether you need a copy of one message or an archive of a mailbox.
How to Download Emails from Gmail
To save one Gmail message, use Gmail’s Download message command. For a readable local copy of your mailbox that you can update over time, mailmd is the best…
How to Save Outlook Emails to Your Computer
Download one Outlook email as an EML or MSG file, which stores the message in an email file, or print it to PDF.
How to Save Emails So You Keep Them for Good
Email stored in Gmail, Outlook, or another mail service remains tied to that account. Archiving a message inside the service usually just removes it from…
How to Export Emails from Outlook
To export an Outlook mailbox, first choose whether you need an Outlook archive file or a readable copy of your messages on your computer.
How to Export Your Gmail to Files You Can Read
If you want to keep Gmail messages as files on your computer, choose a format that suits how you plan to read them.
How to Download Your Emails from Any Mail Provider
To keep a copy of email from Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, or another provider, you need to download the messages or export them into files.
How to Save an Email as a File
To keep an email on your computer, choose a file that fits how you will use it. A PDF is a convenient reading copy.
How to Download All Attachments from Gmail
Gmail’s Download all attachments option puts the files attached to one email in a ZIP file, a compressed file you open to get the attachments.
How to Export Emails from Outlook 365 and the New Outlook
Export a Microsoft 365 mailbox to a PST file to save it as an Outlook archive. A PST, or Outlook Data File, stores email and other selected Outlook items in…
How to Save Emails to a Folder on Your Computer
To save email on your computer, choose a format that suits how you plan to use it. eml file preserves an individual message for an email program; a PDF is…
How to Save Emails to Google Drive
To save one Gmail message in a form that is easy to read, print it to PDF and upload the file to Google Drive.
How to Download Attachments from Multiple Outlook Emails
Outlook’s built-in Save All Attachments and Download all commands save attachments from one email at a time.
How to Convert Email to Plain Text
Email conversion can mean three different things: sending a message without formatting, viewing a received message without its HTML design, or saving…
How to Convert Email to Markdown
When you save email messages as files you can search, edit, or use with scripts, Markdown gives you a readable format: plain text with simple markers for…
MBOX vs. Maildir: How Email Gets Stored as Files
When an email program saves messages to disk, it can put all the messages in a folder into one file or save each message in a separate file.
Free and open source
Try mailmd
mailmd is a free command-line tool that copies your email into Markdown files on your computer, one file per message. It works with any IMAP mailbox, and with Gmail and Outlook through their own APIs.
Install
$ curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vincentsch/mailmd/main/install.sh | sh
Set it up with your coding agent
Set up mailmd so you can read my email. Use https://github.com/vincentsch/mailmd: read its AGENTS.md and follow the steps. Connect my mailbox and run the first sync. Then show me where the files are.