How to Save or Download Emails from Gmail (One Message, a Sender, or Everything)

There are four different questions hiding inside "how do I save emails from Gmail", and each has a different right answer.

1. I want this one email as a file.
2. I want every email from this sender, or under this label.
3. I want a copy of my whole mailbox, because I'm leaving the account or I don't trust it.
4. I want emails like this to keep getting saved, forever, without me doing it.

Here's how they map to tools, then the steps for each.

If what you actually want is emails as spreadsheet rows (sender, date, subject in columns), that's a different job, and the export emails from Gmail guide covers it.

One email, as a file

Open the email. Click the three dots at the top right of the message (not the three dots above the whole thread). Choose Download message.

Gmail saves an .eml file: the complete email, headers, body and attachments, in a format any mail program opens. Double-click it and it opens in Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird.

That's also its limitation. An .eml is a mail file, not a document. You can't preview it in Drive, and sending one to a client is asking them to open something unfamiliar. For a document, keep reading.

One email, as a PDF

Open the email, click the printer icon at the top right of the message, and in the print dialog set the destination to Save as PDF. Save.

The full walkthrough, including the phone steps and what to do about broken images, is in how to save an email as a PDF in Gmail. The one thing to remember: the PDF is the message body only. Attachments have to be downloaded separately, which is the step everyone forgets.

Every email from a sender, or under a label

This is the "all my receipts from Amazon" and "everything from this client" case. Two routes.

Google Takeout, by label. Takeout can export a single label rather than the whole mailbox, which is the trick for pulling out one slice.

1. If the emails aren't already under a label, create one. Search Gmail for from:billing@example.com, click the search options arrow, Create filter, tick Apply the label, and tick Also apply filter to matching conversations so old emails get it too.
2. Go to takeout.google.com. Deselect all, then select Mail.
3. Click All Mail data included, deselect everything, tick just your label.
4. Choose the delivery method and file size, then Create export.

Google emails you a link when it's ready. Small labels take minutes; big ones take hours. The result is an MBOX file, which is a mail archive. You read it by importing it into Thunderbird or Apple Mail, not by opening it in a PDF viewer.

An add-on, into Drive. If you want readable files in a Drive folder rather than an MBOX, the Workspace Marketplace has bulk tools for it. cloudHQ's "Save Emails and Attachments" is the best-known: it saves a Gmail label to Google Drive as PDF, HTML, text or EML, with attachments, and can keep watching the label for new messages. Free up to a limit, then paid. Chrome extensions that do the same thing exist too; the Chrome Web Store search for "save Gmail as PDF" turns up several.

I'll say plainly that Quicktion is not the tool for this one. It saves emails from the moment you set it up; it doesn't reach back into your inbox. For a backlog, use Takeout or an add-on, then use the automatic route below so the backlog doesn't rebuild.

Your whole mailbox

Google Takeout again, without the label filter.

1. takeout.google.com, Deselect all, select Mail.
2. Leave All Mail data included as is.
3. Pick a delivery method. Sending a download link by email is the default; you can also send it straight to Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive.
4. Pick a file size. Exports bigger than the size you choose get split into several zip files.
5. Create export.

A large mailbox can take a day or two. You'll get an email when it's done, and the download link works for a week.

What you get is an MBOX file inside a zip. To read it, import it into Thunderbird (free, any platform) or Apple Mail. To put it on an external hard drive, just copy the zip over. It's a backup, and a good one, but it isn't something you browse: there's no folder of files, no search from Finder or Windows Explorer, and nothing opens without a mail program.

Emails that keep arriving

Everything above is a one-time action. The next receipt, the next client thread, the next contract still lands in the inbox and stays there until you remember to do it again.

The fix is a Gmail filter that forwards matching emails to Quicktion, which files them wherever you point it.

Into Google Drive, as PDFs. Each email becomes a subfolder in a Drive folder you choose, holding the message rendered to PDF, the original HTML, and the attachments under their own names:

Receipts/
  2026-08-26_Your receipt from Acme/
    email.pdf
    email.html
    receipt-8842.pdf

Images are downloaded and embedded, so nothing goes blank later. Folder names follow a pattern you set ({date}_{subject} by default, {sender} and {domain} available), so the folder sorts itself.

Into a sheet or database, as rows. Same filter, different destination: Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, Linear or Trello. Sender, date, subject and body land in columns, attachments get linked. Better than folders when the question is "which of these are unpaid" rather than "show me March".

To set it up:

1. In Quicktion, create a destination and copy the forwarding address (it looks like abc123@in.quicktion.io).
2. In Gmail, Settings > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > Add a forwarding address, enter it, and confirm with the code Gmail sends.
3. Create a filter: search for what you want (from:billing@stripe.com, has:attachment subject:invoice), click Create filter, tick Forward it to and pick the address.
4. Send yourself a matching email and check the destination.

The forward emails to Google Drive guide walks through it with screenshots. For one-off saves without a filter, the Gmail add-on puts a save button in Gmail's sidebar.

Limits: it doesn't backfill, so pair it with Takeout for what's already there. Drive destinations use My Drive folders, not Shared Drives. Free plan is 25 emails a month with a small "Saved with Quicktion" line on PDFs; Pro is $12/month for 1,000.

On your phone

The Gmail app has no Download message. Your options are print to PDF (three dots, Print, then Save as PDF on Android or share then Save to Files on iPhone), or forward the email to your Quicktion address and let it land in Drive. The second one is two taps and produces a better PDF.

Picking one

• One email to reopen in a mail program: Download message.
• One email to send or read anywhere: print to PDF.
• A sender or a label, as a backup: Takeout by label. As readable files in Drive: an add-on.
• The whole mailbox: Takeout.
• Emails that keep coming: a filter into Quicktion, into Drive as PDFs or into a sheet as rows.

Most people end up with two of these: Takeout for the backlog, a filter for everything after.

Frequently asked questions

Can I save a Gmail email as a file?

Yes. Open the email, click the three dots at the top right of the message and choose Download message. Gmail saves an .eml file with the attachments inside it. For a document you can read anywhere, use Print and Save as PDF instead.

How do I download all Gmail emails as PDF?

Gmail can't do it natively; print works one message at a time. For a pile of existing emails, a Chrome extension or a Workspace add-on like cloudHQ's Save Emails and Attachments can convert a label to PDFs in Drive. For emails that keep arriving, a Gmail filter that forwards to Quicktion saves each one as a PDF with its attachments automatically.

How do I download all emails from Gmail to my desktop?

Use Google Takeout. Go to takeout.google.com, deselect everything, select Mail, choose all mail or specific labels, and Google builds an MBOX archive you download. Big mailboxes take hours or days. You need a mail program like Thunderbird or Apple Mail to read the MBOX file.

How do I save Gmail emails to a folder on my computer?

For a few emails, use Download message on each one and drop the .eml files into the folder. For many, export the label with Takeout and unzip the archive there. For emails that keep coming, forward them to a Quicktion Drive destination and sync that Drive folder to your computer with Google Drive for desktop.

How do I back up Gmail emails with attachments?

Takeout's MBOX export includes attachments inside each message. Download message keeps them inside the .eml. Print to PDF drops them. Quicktion saves the email as a PDF and the attachments as separate files in the same Google Drive folder, which is the only one of these where you can open the attachment without a mail program.

Can I download emails from the Gmail app on my phone?

Not as a file. The Gmail app has no Download message option. You can print to PDF from the three-dot menu (Save as PDF on Android, share then Save to Files on iPhone), or forward the email to a Quicktion address and let it land in Drive.

Next steps

Backing up what's there: run Takeout with the steps above.

Filing what's coming: set up a Google Drive destination, add a Gmail filter, forward a test email. Free for 25 emails a month, no card.

Outlook user? The Outlook version of this guide covers PST exports, Save as, and rules.