How to Download G Suite? Learn 5 Best Methods
Summary: Ever wondered how many ways are actually there to download G Suite emails? I would say plenty! Yes, there are a lot of techniques to export emails from google workspace and data to local storage. There might be various reasons to export G Suite emails data, but choosing the right method is the key to successful G Suite data migration.
So, without much ado, let’s get started to export emails from Google Workspace!
G suite, also known as Google Workspace is a productivity suite developed by Google. It offers a range of applications such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more. It streamlines the collaboration and communication among users and also allows sharing and editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. G suite offers enhanced features, tools and solutions for businesses of all sizes to boost their productivity. Now let’s discuss how it can be beneficial to export G Suite emails.
Why to Export Emails from Google Workspace?
Before diving into any method to download G Suite emails, it’s crucial to clearly define the purpose and scope of what you’re trying to achieve. Its recommended to analyze few points such as:
- Downloading G suite emails allows users to access their data offline and through multiple devices at any time.
- Storing emails locally helps to keep a backup of important data. If you have a backup, you do not need to worry about your data incase of accidental deletion or data loss.
- Some users also export Google workspace emails to share them with their colleagues across multiple platforms.
- We can add an extra layer of security to our G suite email data, if we save them locally on our computer. It prevents the data from unauthorized access and data breaches.
How to Download G Suite Emails? – Top 5 Methods
Now, lets discuss each method to export emails from Google Workspace one by one for a step by step guide.
#1 Export Google Workspace Email with G Suite
Starting with the Data Export tool in Google Apps. This utility is available to all the G Suite for Business plans. The prior functions of the Data Export utility are to save the data from Google Gmail, Team Drive, Contacts, Hangouts Chats, Documents, Vault, etc.
To get started with Data Export Tool, we have to enable a couple of settings and prerequisites to download G Suite emails:
- Step 1. Make sure you are the super administrator of the G Suite account. Also, your domain must be at least 30 days old.
- Step 2. Enable 2-step Verification in the G Suite admin account.
- Step 3. There must be 1000 or lesser user accounts.
After you meet up with the above requirements, follow the below steps to export emails from Google Workspace:
- Step 1. Log in with your G Suite Admin details.
- Step 2. Visit the Admin Console >> click on “<” button.
- Step 3. Move to Tools >> select the Data Export option.
- Step 4. Hit on the Start button to download G Suite emails and data.
#2 Google Takeout to Export G Suite Emails
One of the most popular tools among Google accounts users is Google Takeout or Takeaway. Here are all the steps to use Takeout to export emails from Google Workspace.
- Step 1. Start by Signing in to https://www.google.com/takeout.
- Step 2. Now choose all the data items like Gmail, Contacts, Drive etc. that you want to export >> hit Next.
- Step 3. Choose the desired file extension (.zip, .tgz) in which you want to export Google Apps data.
- Step 4. Next, choose the Delivery method >> tap on Create Archive button to begin the process.
- Step 5. You need to wait for a while until archive file (.zip / .tgz) is exported and ready.
- Step 6. A download link of the archive file will be sent to your Google Apps mailbox.
- Step 7. Open the link and download the archive file. Save the exported data from G Suite archive to the desired location.
#3 Advanced Tool to Export Emails from Google Workspace
With the help of Best G Suite Export tool users can download G Suite emails instantly. The tool simply exports the Google Apps emails, contacts, calendars, and attached files to the popular Outlook file format. It allows Google Workspace to Outlook migration by exporting the Outlook file format, which can be saved to any on-premise location.
Note: Try free version of the software to export emails from Google Workspace, which will export 2 users’ account data items from G Suite account to local storage for free.
This one is the personal favorite backup solution of thousands of users to conveniently export G Suite emails to desktop. SysTools G Suite Backup Solution is a professional approach to securely perform G Suite data migration and export from single user account as well as domain account. The software is specially built to tackle the hurdles in exporting “heavy” G Suite data, which the manual methods most of the time fail to work.
#4 How to Export G Suite Emails with Google Vault?
Coming next to Google Vault service. Now there are a lot of misconceptions about Vault. Many users think Vault exports a copy of Google account emails and stuff, which is in reality not true! Google Vault is ideal to use when you want to download G Suite emails, something which you often do not need but you might need in the future or some users actually require it for maybe legal purposes. Vault indeed turns out to be a really useful utility when it comes to retaining historical data in any organization. Google Vault performs 3 main tasks, Retain, Search and export emails from Google Workspace.
Find the complete step wise tutorial of Google Vault in the article Is Google Vault A Backup?
#5 Sync Your Google Apps Account with Outlook and Export G Suite Emails
Now, this is a tricky way to export emails from Google Workspace, easy technique though. Only applicable if you are having Outlook application. All you have to do is just configure your G Suite email account with an Outlook account and then with the Export to PST option, you can easily archive/export Gmail to PST format.
To configure G Suite with Outlook, follow the below steps:
- Open your Outlook account >> go to File >> Add Account.
- Now enter G Suite credentials >> tap on Advanced options >> Mark the checkbox “Let me set up my Account manually” >> Connect.
- In the choose account type option, select IMAP >> Now enter the following settings to download G Suite emails:
- Incoming Mail Settings: enter “imap.gmail.com”, put “993” for Server & Port no., and select SSL/TLS as Encryption method.
- Outgoing Mail Settings: enter “smtp.gmail.com”, put “465” for Server and Port no., and choose SSL as Encryption method.
- Click on Next to export emails from Google Workspace.
- Now you have to enter the G Suite account password >> hit on Connect >> click on OK
As soon as your G Suite account gets configured with Outlook, your G Suite emails will be synchronized and then you can easily export and download G Suite emails from MS Outlook.
Also Read: G Suite Legacy Free Edition Ending? Have you Downloaded your Emails?
Before You Implement Any of the Above Methods, Take A Look At the Lags!
Having described all the above methods to export G Suite emails, I would like to add where these techniques are lagging. Take a look at the following points and then implement the method that best suits your requirements.
- Starting with Data Export Tool, as we already discussed the prerequisites, there is more than that,
- Data export tool takes a hell lot of time (72 hours or even more) to export emails from Google Workspace and other items.
- The tool just can’t export data from certain user accounts for no reason.
- No freshly added data will be downloaded with this utility.
- For Google Takeout, it also takes a lot of time (even days) to export a huge amount of data.
- Google Apps export tool (the backup software) is ideal to export large G Suite data and being a third-party software it is built with the sole purpose to download G Suite emails in bulk flawlessly. The only limit I believe is, it is not supported on MAC OS, but only on Windows.
- Google Vault does not mainly work to archive G Suite data, but to only Retain, Search and Export it. So, it can’t be termed as a purely backup solution to export emails from Google Workspace.
- For the Configure G Suite with Outlook technique:
- You need MS Outlook installed in the first place to export G Suite emails.
- If the G Suite emails are heavy, say 30K emails, Outlook is going to hang and freeze, ruining the whole process. You may lose some of your data as well.
So that is it! Grab any suitable method for your Google account and download G Suite emails without stressing out.
Related: Know How to Migrate Google docs to Office 365
Commonly Asked Queries
Due to the security control, only the Supper admin of G Suite account who is created 30 days prior to the request can only initiate the exportation. To export G Suite emails the G Suite account should enable the 2-step verification and have 1000 or fewer user accounts.
Google Takeout or Takeaway supports the archive file formats ZIP and TGZ which supports lossless data compression.
The backup tool allows the users to export emails from Google Workspace, calendar, contact, and attached file data in PST, EML, MBOX, and MSG file format on the local system. You can follow the below 5 steps to download G Suite emails:
- Step 1. Download, install, and launch the software.
- Step 2. Choose G Suite and Outlook as Platforms.
- Step 3. Login with G Suite admin credentials.
- Step 4. Set destination location to download G Suite.
- Step 5. Select user accounts and click on start.
Google vault mainly works to retain, search, and export emails from Google Workspace. It is mainly used to archive the G Suite mailbox which you often do not need at the moment but might need in the future.