Permanetly saving Gmail to macOS Mail

[mdelvecchio]

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?

 

[mdelvecchio]

Unfortunately the Google Takeout tool's MBOX export is simply one giant folder of messages -- no label/folder designations are preserved. This is...less than useful.

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.

 

[poorcody]

I've heard good things about this tool:

Official imapsync migration tool ( release 2.264 )

Imapsync is an IMAP sync tool. It syncs all folders from one mailbox to another, both anywhere on the Internet or in your local network.

imapsync.lamiral.info

The author seems to have a free online version, a paid-desktop (expensive!) version, and the source-code is available on GitHub so you could compile a free desktop version yourself if that's in your wheelhouse.