If you want to save an email for offline use, or if you want to send that email to someone as an attachment, Gmail lets you download your emails in an offline EML format. We’ll show you how to do that on your desktop, as you can’t do it on mobile yet.
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What you need to know when downloading emails from Gmail
Your downloaded Gmail email is saved in an EML format. This format cannot be opened with Gmail, but you can use a desktop email client such as Outlook or Windows Mail to open these email files.
You can also attach this downloaded EML file to the new emails you compose in your favorite email client. We also discuss how to do this in the guide below.
Save an email from Gmail to your computer
To start the email download process, first open your favorite web browser on your computer and launch Gmail. Then log in to your account on the site.
In Gmail, click the email you want to download. When the email opens, click on the three dots in the top right corner.
In the three-dot menu, click ‘Download Message’.
You see it by default “save”window of your computer. Choose the folder where you want to save your email. Optionally enter a name for your email file in the field “File name”†
Then click “Save” to save your email.
And that’s it. You now have an offline copy of your Gmail email in the folder you specified.
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Open the downloaded email or attach it to a new email
To access your downloaded Gmail email, you can use Windows’ built-in Mail app, Outlook, or any other email client. To open the file with Mail, right-click the downloaded EML file and choose Open With > Mail.
To attach the downloaded email to a new email, compose your new email in your preferred email client as usual. Then select the option to attach files and choose your EML file as attachment.
Then send your email as usual and your recipient will get a copy of your downloaded Gmail email. You are done.
Gmail’s email download feature is extremely useful as it allows you to make offline copies of your important emails. You can then access these downloaded emails even if you don’t have internet access.
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