HT201250: Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac

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bje411

Q: I want to use Time Machine to back-up all gmail emails to a Seagate or Lacie drive.drive.

I have a Mac Mini with OS X Lion 10.7.5.  I want to use some software (Time Machine?) to back-up all of my gmail

emails going back to 2006 on a Seagate back-up drive.  I installed Time Machine, and it backed-up everything but

gmail e-mails.  Can somebody give me help.

Mac Mini OX X Lion 10.7.5

Posted on Aug 3, 2016 6:25 AM

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Q: I want to use Time Machine to back-up all gmail emails to a Seagate or Lacie drive.drive.

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  • Helpful answers

  • by JimmyCMPIT,Solvedanswer

    JimmyCMPIT JimmyCMPIT Aug 3, 2016 1:33 PM in response to bje411
    Level 5 (6,926 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 3, 2016 1:33 PM in response to bje411

    Time Machine is for backing up files on a local drive. If your gmail emails are local on your HD they are being backed up. But if they are on a Gmail server this is not a function of Time Machine.

     

    https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en

  • by bje411,

    bje411 bje411 Aug 3, 2016 6:38 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 3, 2016 6:38 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

    Ok, thank you.  Can you recommend a program that will back-up emails directly from gmail? 

  • by bje411,

    bje411 bje411 Aug 3, 2016 6:40 AM in response to bje411
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 3, 2016 6:40 AM in response to bje411

    Ok, I understand.  Thank you.  Can you recommend software that will back-up gmail files from the gmail server, or

    do I have to handle them individually? 

  • by Allan Eckert,

    Allan Eckert Allan Eckert Aug 3, 2016 1:39 PM in response to bje411
    Level 9 (53,418 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 3, 2016 1:39 PM in response to bje411

    What functionality are you hoping to achieve with this?

     

    As Jimmy said if they are on your Mac then Time Machine has backed them up already.

  • by bje411,

    bje411 bje411 Aug 3, 2016 1:53 PM in response to Allan Eckert
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 3, 2016 1:53 PM in response to Allan Eckert

    Functionally I want to be able to store copies of emails with important information on the back-up drive separate from gmail,  rather than copy their contents individually.  Once copies are safe and accessible, I can put the originals in the Trash and free up my gmail Inbox.  I tried to drag an original email to the back-up drive, and that doesn't seem to work. It's probably going to be tedious anyway, but I had a situation recently where my numerous Inbox emails were arbitrarily moved to the Trash folder, then deleted from Trash.  Fortunately, gmail has an options whereby one can retrieve deleted emails.