How to backup Gmail mail messages using Thunderbird

There are many ways to backup your Gmail account, one of the more popular methods people are using is the POP3 backup method. (According to a Google search results list.) In this tutorial I will show you how to download, install, and then configure Mozilla Thunderbird to backup Gmail messages.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Thunderbird
• Gmail Account

1. Login to Gmail and inside it click on settings in the top right corner.

2. Click on the Forwarding and Pop link\tab.

3. Click on Enable Pop for all mail.

4. Click on step number 2 of that window and click on Keep Gmail's copy in the inbox from the drop down menu.

5. Click the "Save Chages" button.
   (Great you just told Gmail it is allowed to send your emails to another mail client!) Don't worry your mail is still protected by your account password and username.

6. Download Thunderbird at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

7. 

   Double click on Thunderbird Setup X.XX (Where X is the version number)

8. The first screen is the welcome screen of Thunderbird setup, click Next.

9. 

   Read the agreement on the next screen, click I accept and then click Next.

10. Click next again.

11. 

    Click Finish (leave the "Launch Mozilla Thunderbird now" checked)

12. 

    If you have Microsoft Outlook on your computer, you will have an option to import those settings, choose yes if you would like to and then click next.

13. 

    Just choose next and ok for the rest of these screens. I recommend not changing your current default RSS and mail settings when prompted, unless you plan to use Thunderbird for your regular mail and rss reader.

14. Once inside the Thunderbird mail window go to Tools > Account Settings.

15. From the left side click the button that says Add Account.

16. Click Email Account and click next.

17. 

    Fill in your name and your full Gmail address and then click Next.

18. Choose POP and type in pop.gmail.com for your incoming server. If you like you can fill out the outgoing server, but it is not necessary for using this as a Gmail backup.

19. Click Next.

20. Type your full Gmail email address as your incoming and outgoing email address, and then click Next.

21. Click Next, and click Finish.

22. Click in the left pane the section that says “Server Settings” If you do not see server settings expand each collapsed entry on the left until you do see those words.

23. On the right side of the new pane choose SSL and type in 995 for your port, the other options are semi optional.

24. Click Get mail, from Thunderbird. Thousands of messages will take you several days to get a complete backup, when it is finally caught up it will be really fast for future emails. You don’t have to leave the computer on just have Thunderbird open for a bit every time you have the computer on to allow the backup, and then close it when you get off.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to use Thunderbird as a full mail client you can follow the directions here for fully setting up your outgoing server: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=38343 However since this is a tutorial on backup we only intend to show you how to copy your current Gmail inbox. The instructions provided for Gmail to Thunderbird are dated so all screen shots they provide will be slightly off as of this writing.