Transfer Stuff from Google Mail

[Guerri Stevens]

Google is going to change its Mail application. I made a brief foray into the new version, and was not happy with what I saw. It may be more suitable for "the way people interact with the net now" but I am not one of those people who interact the way Google wants me to, so I switched back, giving them a piece of my mind in the process.

However, the day is coming when it will no longer be possible to use the old version. Initially I got the Gmail account to use as an address when ordering things online. For that purpose, I am not going to care much about the new version of Gmail. But as time went by, I subscribed to a few newsletters, and I have a lot of archived messages that I want to transfer elsewhere, getting them out of Gmail. I have already started the process of getting my newletters sent elsewhere, which takes care of newer issues.

But now I am looking for a way to store all the stuff I have saved and want to move elsewhere. My initial thought was to transmit the messages to another Email address from whence I could save them as one or more files. But that is not easy. If I use POP3 in conjunction with Thunderbird, ALL mail will be collected, not just the particular messages I want. This happens because Gmail doesn't have separate folders. There is just one big blob of messages, some of which are in the Inbox and others of which might be labelled so they don't appear in the inbox.

One possibility for POP3 is to go ahead and let all the messages get transferred (including older ones), but leave them in Gmail, rather than deleting them. Filters in Tbird could direct them where I want them. Of course they will all show up as "unread", but I think that will be trivial to change.

Once they have arrived in Tbird, I can go back into Gmail and delete the ones I wanted to remove, leaving the ones I want to keep in Gmail. On both ends of the process, there will be some tedious work, but I think that groups of things can be deleted simultaneously on both ends.

Another possibility in Gmail is to forward with a filter. The problem with that is that it applies only to newly arriving messages! And there are not a lot of fields that you can filter on.

A third possibility is to manually forward messages. But this has to be done one at a time. Open the message, go to the bottom, and click on Forward. I tried marking a group of messages, but could see no way to forward the entire group all at once. If I were talking about 10 or 20 or even 50 messages, that would be ok, but I have more than a year's worth and there are LOTS of messages.

Does anyone have any other ideas? It would be nice if I could somehow "save" messages, and I will keep looking around, but I haven't seen anything like that, and even if it exists, it might still be a one-at-a-time operation.

-- Guerri

[davidh]

...
But now I am looking for a way to store all the stuff I have saved and want to move elsewhere. My initial thought was to transmit the messages to another Email address from whence I could save them as one or more files. But that is not easy. If I use POP3 in conjunction with Thunderbird, ALL mail will be collected, not just the particular messages I want. This happens because Gmail doesn't have separate folders. There is just one big blob of messages, some of which are in the Inbox and others of which might be labelled so they don't appear in the inbox.
...
-- Guerri
Guerri,
FWIW, both T-bird and Gmail support IMAP. And IMAP on Gmail does allow you to bring your Gmail labelled messages from Gmail into correspondingly named folders in T-bird IMAP.

A few years ago I tried this, but I did not like it. IMAP seems too complicated for me to use with ease. So I now get all my Gmail, Yahoo, and AIM email with T-bird POP3. For Yahoo it's not really POP3 but a T-bird webmail 'extension' that mimics POP3 but apparently actually is HTTP under the hood. (I would NOT recommend relying heavily on this T-bird extension since one is probably relying on only one or a couple people to keep updating the extensions to keep pace with T-bird updates.)

I personally don't see a problem for myself with leaving a lot of old email on Google. Actually it turned out to my benefit when I crashed my Win XP. I did not have some of my correspondents' addresses backed up in my Gmail address book, but I did have them in my Gmail message base and so was able to recover their addresses when I blew out my Win XP.

Keeping a lot of email on the web is not necessarily a problem if the webmail program has good search capability. I have not used that capbility much in Gmail, but I don't remember having had reason to complain about Gmail's search functions. But then, my memory is not perfect.

P.S. FWIW, I am using the new Gmail webmail interface. I suppose I am getting more familiar with it as time goes by. I don't find it objectionable, although still a little bit unfamiliar.

BTW, incidentally, I think both Yahoo mail and Google mail and some others (AOL?) still support plain old HTTP only (no Javascript) webmail interface. It is simpler and loads in the browser much faster and I think it can be set as your default, in Gmail at least. However some tasks may be less convenient to do via the old HTTP only web interface (designed for slower PC's and older browsers / OS's).

[Guerri Stevens]

Guerri,
FWIW, both T-bird and Gmail support IMAP. And IMAP on Gmail does allow you to bring your Gmail labelled messages from Gmail into correspondingly named folders in T-bird IMAP.
Does IMAP allow you to get Gmail messages that have already been downloaded? POP3 does, but I don't see any IMAP setting for that. In any event, by the time I got everything set up for IMAP on both ends, it may have taken longer than just using POP3 and doing some manual work. This is something I only care about doing the one time.

I personally don't see a problem for myself with leaving a lot of old email on Google.
The problem isn't leaving the mail on Google per se. The problem is that I don't care for what I've seen of the forthcoming new interface, and want to limit my exposure to it. If I get myself back to using Gmail mainly for order and shipping confirmations, I will avoid having to constantly deal with the new interface.


P.S. FWIW, I am using the new Gmail webmail interface. I suppose I am getting more familiar with it as time goes by. I don't find it objectionable, although still a little bit unfamiliar.

BTW, incidentally, I think both Yahoo mail and Google mail and some others (AOL?) still support plain old HTTP only (no Javascript) webmail interface. It is simpler and loads in the browser much faster and I think it can be set as your default, in Gmail at least. However some tasks may be less convenient to do via the old HTTP only web interface (designed for slower PC's and older browsers / OS's).

I have multiple problems with the new interface; it seems to require more steps to do things than the old interface. Labels, for example. Under the old interface I could see my labels along the left side of the screen. Now some of them are hidden and have to be accessed with "more" or the three dots (I forget).

I looked and didn't see any way to use the old HTTP in Gmail. I am positive there used to be something that could be chosen, and it was near the bottom of the screen. Maybe now it has been moved into the Settings themselves.

[davidh]

Guerri,
My best guess is to recommend not to use IMAP unless you already have a good understanding of how it works. For me it was confusing.

When I log in to Gmail, a choice to use HTML appears momentarily after I enter my ID and password. If you have a very fast ISP (e.g. FIOS?), it may be hard to see. I'm guessing that if one intentionally used an obsolete OS or browser that Gmail might automatically default to HTML view.

[davidh]

Guerri,
My best guess is to recommend not to use IMAP unless you already have a good understanding of how it works. For me it was confusing.

When I log in to Gmail, a choice to use HTML appears momentarily after I enter my ID and password. If you have a very fast ISP (e.g. FIOS?), it may be hard to see. I'm guessing that if one intentionally used an obsolete OS or browser that Gmail might automatically default to HTML view.
FWIW, I tried choosing HTML on FF 9 win xp and it didn't work. Maybe I hit the link too slowly?
I tried FF 2 on a win 98 pc, and Gmail defaulted to HTML view.

P.S.
Unrelated curious thing. I've been running an essentially defunct resident AV (namely Avast 4) on my win 98 pc for a few years. I had to go into safe mode to uninstall it today, my first "on win 98" day in 2012, because it was shutting down the pc (i.e. crashing) AFAIK. But I still have ClamAV, so maybe I'll still be able to do "on demand" scans. At first I thought a cockroach might have been electrocuted or eaten something inside the pc :D

[davidh]

FWIW, I tried choosing HTML on FF 9 win xp and it didn't work. Maybe I hit the link too slowly?
I tried FF 2 on a win 98 pc, and Gmail defaulted to HTML view.
Yup. That was it.
Tried hitting it faster this time.
Got:
You are currently viewing Gmail in basic HTML. Why? | Upgrade your browser for faster, better Gmail | Set basic HTML as default view

[Guerri Stevens]

Guerri,
My best guess is to recommend not to use IMAP unless you already have a good understanding of how it works. For me it was confusing.

When I log in to Gmail, a choice to use HTML appears momentarily after I enter my ID and password. If you have a very fast ISP (e.g. FIOS?), it may be hard to see. I'm guessing that if one intentionally used an obsolete OS or browser that Gmail might automatically default to HTML view.
I don't see any choice to use HTML. So my ISP must be too fast, -or- I am using the old Gmail and you are using the new one.

I am sure, though, that at some point there was a choice. I thought that if you brought up an Email message and scrolled to the bottom, it was there. Although I might be mis-remembering, and perhaps it was at the end of the inbox list. But I know it was there. I don't remember exactly what the choices were, either.

I agree about the IMAP.

[davidh]

I don't see any choice to use HTML. So my ISP must be too fast, -or- I am using the old Gmail and you are using the new one.

I am sure, though, that at some point there was a choice. I thought that if you brought up an Email message and scrolled to the bottom, it was there. Although I might be mis-remembering, and perhaps it was at the end of the inbox list. But I know it was there. I don't remember exactly what the choices were, either.

I agree about the IMAP.
Guerri,
If, for example, you eventually sooner or later still intend to use Gmail minimally for some purpose or other and if you are still interested in using the HTML-only Gmail interface, then you can probably access it by going to the following web address:

mail.google.com/mail/h

If and when that works, you should at that point have the choice of whether or not to make the HTML view become your default view.

If that works and if you would prefer to avoid making HTML-only your default then you could, for convenience, make a browser bookmark/favorite out of the web address that I gave (in addition to a bookmark to gmail.com which I guess you might already have somewhere on your PC).

[Guerri Stevens]

Guerri,
If, for example, you eventually sooner or later still intend to use Gmail minimally for some purpose or other and if you are still interested in using the HTML-only Gmail interface, then you can probably access it by going to the following web address:

mail.google.com/mail/h
I saw the option just now. My 4G had dropped to 3G which was slow enough for me to see the choice as I logged on. I think I am actually using HTML but the thing was too fast for me to observe for long enough to notice what the other option was and figure out which one was selected. What is the other interface, the non HTML-only one?

-- Guerri

[davidh]

I saw the option just now. My 4G had dropped to 3G which was slow enough for me to see the choice as I logged on. I think I am actually using HTML but the thing was too fast for me to observe for long enough to notice what the other option was and figure out which one was selected. What is the other interface, the non HTML-only one?

-- Guerri
Guerri,

As you know, almost all sites are HTML. Nowadays almost all of the HTML sites use Javascript too, which requires a connection and PC both fast enough to download the extra "bulk" made up of the Javascript and fast enough to run the Javascript in a timely manner.

I don't know which browsers and/or browser plug-ins still support FTP, Gopher, Telnet, etc. BTW, FWIW, item of curiousity, the old text only cross platform LYNX browser may also support nntp news groups, IIRC.

AFAIK, as long as you have an up-to-date OS and an up-to-date browser, Gmail will always default to whichever of the newer views you have chosen to use (i.e. not the HTML-only), that is, if you have chosen one of the newer views.

Whatever view of Gmail you are using, if hints/tags appear when you hover the mouse pointer over various icons then you almost certainly are not using the HTML-only view of Gmail.

I am guessing that Google might support the HTML-only interface for a long time into the future. First, it would seem to me that it would be good to support low speed connections to garner users who might tend to stick with Gmail if and when they upgrade to broadband connections. Second, it would seem to me to be a good cyber defense in case of natural disaster or cyber attack wiping out parts of the Internet and thus slowing down traffic.

Most web users allow pretty much all cookies and Javascript from all domains, so pretty much all users including dial-up or other low bandwidth connection users will also provide a venue for Google and other advertising channels on the Internet (incl. such things as tracking via "web beacons", doubleclick (Google's), etc. :( ).

I don't use the Gmail (or Yahoo) HTML-only views much, but when I do, they do seem simpler in some way or other, but I had never bothered to try to investigate all the possible features of the newer views and esp. the newest view, in order to consider all the possible tradeoffs to be made in choosing one view or another of Gmail.

FWIW, I think the webmail extension for T-bird does support T-bird downloading and sending Gmail via http / https protocol (i.e. under the hood semi proprietary webmail interface). This is probably not applicable to many home users but it would be useful for one wishing to read personal email when behind a company firewall that blocks all email traffic (POP3 & SMTP) except that to the company mail servers.

[Guerri Stevens]

I have begun the process of transferring messages from my Gmail account. I made sure I had read everything. I set my POP options in Gmail to send all mail, even messages that had already been read. I told it to leave messages in place, rather than deleting them. Then I told Thunderbird to retrieve mail from the Gmail account.

Imagine my surprise when Tbird said it was transferring 255 messages! I knew there were over 800 there. In a way that's a good thing because my Internet service sometimes drops to a slower speed, or no speed, and it didn't take long to transfer the stuff. I now know that I will have to do this in several batches.

I should mention for anyone who might be interested in doing this: as far as I can tell, there is no way to specify which messages are to be transferred. The process just takes everything available. That is why you have to tell Gmail not to delete messages after they've been picked up if you want to take some stuff off Gmail and leave some stuff on.

What I don't know is who decides how many messages will be transferred. Is it Thunderbird, due to some setting or other (I looked but didn't see anything). Or is it Gmail? I guess it doesn't really matter, but it is interesting. The 255 message limit is not a fixed amount; it was 251 for the next transfer and not because that's all that were left. So either Gmail or Tbird is making some kind of calculation.

-- Guerri

[davidh]

...
What I don't know is who decides how many messages will be transferred. Is it Thunderbird, due to some setting or other (I looked but didn't see anything). Or is it Gmail? I guess it doesn't really matter, but it is interesting. The 255 message limit is not a fixed amount; it was 251 for the next transfer and not because that's all that were left. So either Gmail or Tbird is making some kind of calculation.

-- Guerri A question I probably wondered about, but apparently decided to avoid trying to find out the answer. :cool:

Glad you're making progress.

[ndebord]

A question I probably wondered about, but apparently decided to avoid trying to find out the answer. :cool:

Glad you're making progress.

David,

http://www.infosecurity-us.com/view/23547/congress-to-ftc-check-into-googles-new-privacy-policy/

I never trusted Gmail as my primary repository for email, so always downloaded POP3 to my email client, then on to text and zip files. With Google's new intrusive, as in you can no longer opt out, one shoe fits all privacy policy, you are going to be stuck with having your email and all other Google accounts intermingled, as in you may write about taking a trip somewhere and then find an ad in your email about travel packages, etc. For example, if you are signed into your google email account online and while you're there, you are scrolling through, say News Google, or using the Google search engine, you may well find lots of interesting adverts showing up in your inbox!

So I am actively looking for a substitute for Google. I have deleted all my emails from the Google server, closed down my docs, dropped Google Plus and am looking at what other things I may have there that I've forgotten about.

[davidh]

David,

http://www.infosecurity-us.com/view/23547/congress-to-ftc-check-into-googles-new-privacy-policy/

I never trusted Gmail as my primary repository for email, so always downloaded POP3 to my email client, then on to text and zip files. With Google's new intrusive, as in you can no longer opt out, one shoe fits all privacy policy, you are going to be stuck with having your email and all other Google accounts intermingled, as in you may write about taking a trip somewhere and then find an ad in your email about travel packages, etc. For example, if you are signed into your google email account online and while you're there, you are scrolling through, say News Google, or using the Google search engine, you may well find lots of interesting adverts showing up in your inbox!

So I am actively looking for a substitute for Google. I have deleted all my emails from the Google server, closed down my docs, dropped Google Plus and am looking at what other things I may have there that I've forgotten about.
Nick,
I agree that there seems to be no Google "opt out" specifically for the sake of privacy. I also agree that Google made it harder to log out by requiring TWO clicks to log out instead of the former one click.

However, I almost always DO log out of Gmail by doing the TWO clicks.

I suppose that it would be plausible for Google to assume that the dynamic IP address (e.g. such as in my case where I use my ISP's DSL "lite" service) of a user would remain the same both before and after logging out, of Gmail, for example, for at least a short time, if not for hours or days. That would enable them to keep tracking you/me. However, I get the impression that they probably would not track you AFTER you logged out? I have NOT bothered to read the legal stuff to check if this is true or not. It seems to me that it would be possible to design an algorithm that would with good accuracy be able to "decide" when a dynamic IP address was "now" being used by a "different user". How scalable such an algorithm would be, in terms of horsepower needed, I don't know, but THAT it seems would be an area where Google would excel in making decisions. So, for now, I guess, I'll just trust them that they will not be super "nosey". Furthermore, if one uses POP3 or IMAP to access Gmail then essentially one is using an OLR for mail and one is only logged in for a short time.

Furthermore, in my "maturing years", I have begun to learn that almost everybody will be offended by something or other. Therefore, FWIW, it is a better policy to be diplomatic, even if it means lying, to make people smile, since there is already enough bad news, "out there", to make them frown.

I have always considered the situation to be a "trade off". If I make my ISP to be my main mail server then I would have LESS online storage, probably. Furthermore, I'd have more or less of a PITA to transfer to a different main email address IF I ever used my current ISP mail severs(s) and then subsequently switched to another different ISP, e.g. satellite or cable, instead of DSL, and used THEIR, the latter ISP, mail servers.

Since my relatives are variously scattered across Google+ and Facebook, I am on both services but only participate minimally and with settings hopefully set at max security on both services, but of course, the ground is "moving under my feet".

My theory is that Gmail will 1. be "around" for a long time (so I don't need to worry about being forced to use a email of a 'takeover' service) 2. anybody who seriously wants to invade my privacy can already do it easily by paying a small fee to some service or other to get a lot of information on me anyway. Six of one versus half dozen of the other, choose your poison.

Perhaps there are more important privacy battles to be fought on other fronts? I don't know. What about SOPA? I don't know.

I haven't even progressed to the point where I made really strong passwords on all the online faculties I use. I think that would take priority.

One small thing I HAVE done is to make sure that I don't knowingly log in to third party services by having given my ID's and passwords out to any server who does not have the "need to know". (e.g. log into Facebook via Yahoo, etc.) Even tho' my memory is now foggy I still remember the concept of "need to know" from my days in "ancient" times in the military at NSA.

YMMV,