How to backup your Google Gmail content SPOILER; Team Drive is not supported

If you are closing down a G Suite account (or just a standard personal GMail account - although I can't think why you'd ever do that!?), than you can store all the mail content offline by syncing a Thunderbird mailbox to it, and then changing the password so that the IMAP no longer ever syncs. Wow - that;s a good idea which I only just now thought of! You could then copy (or rename) the Thunderbird Profile folder - and load it as a different account.

You could then even selectively copy or move content by older or individually into another [live] gmail or other IMAP account to sync the content up.

Voila.

In addition to the takeout mentioned next, the GSuite Migration Tool from within the admin console would be the first thing to try. All email form the old box appears in the new box - but where? (More to follow on this... see Jake's blog https://jakebinstein.com/)

https://support.google.com/a/answer/6351475?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=6351498

Successfully migrated 21766 emails

3 emails failed to be migrated

Details

Migration Status	Complete Successfully migrated 21766 emails 3 emails failed to be migrated Download Migration Error Details
Connection Settings	Migration Server: Gmail Connection Protocol: IMAP Email Server: imap.gmail.com

If you prefer, (or in addition) you should use the account takeout service prior to disbanding...

This allows you to selectively zip up the data content of all your google services, and mailbox in MBOX format, and download some large files google make available.

Actually making using of these backups however is not so easy.

Importing the MBOXs into Thunderbird appears to be the most common advice.

A good guide covering all this for both PC and Mac https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/use-downloaded-gmail-data/

However, GYB is another option. I haven't yet tried it, but it looks promising:

https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back/wiki#step-5-performing-a-restore

Head over to takeout to start the process:

There is only one entry for Drive - nothing for Teams Drive (another Blog to come on this!)

Under Mailbox, there are options to choose labels - not sure if this excludes those not selected!?!?

In Step 2 there are options as to how to access the files:

The archives look like this.