How long does a Google Takeout Gmail export take?

Google says exports can take from a few minutes to several days, depending on the size of the mailbox. Small mailboxes are often ready within an hour. You'll get an email when the files are ready to download.

Where is the MBOX file in the Takeout download?

Unzip the download and open Takeout, then Mail. The full export is called All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox. If you chose labels, the file names reflect those labels.

Does the MBOX keep my Gmail labels?

Yes, as data. Each message has an X-Gmail-Labels header listing its labels. Most mail apps ignore it, but InboxVue turns those labels into folders so you can browse the archive as it was in Gmail.

How long do I have to download the export?

Google keeps Takeout files available for a limited time, usually about a week, and shows the expiry date on the Manage exports page. Download them promptly; after that you'll need to create a new export.

Can I import a Takeout MBOX back into Gmail?

Not directly. Gmail has no MBOX import. You can import the file into Thunderbird and copy the messages into a Gmail IMAP folder, which is slow for large archives. Keeping the MBOX as an archive and searching it in a viewer is usually easier.

Is the MBOX file a complete backup?

It contains your emails and their attachments, including spam and trash unless you limit the labels. Your Gmail settings, such as filters and signatures, aren't stored as emails; Takeout saves them as separate small files in the same Mail folder.

Google Takeout MBOX: Export Gmail and Open It (2026)

Google Takeout is Google's official tool for downloading a copy of your data, and for Gmail it produces an MBOX file: a single file containing every email you selected. People use it to back up a mailbox before closing an account, to keep records when leaving a job or school, to hand emails to a lawyer, or to move to another provider. This guide covers both halves of the job: creating the export, and then actually opening and using the file.

Before you start

Use the right account. Takeout exports the account you're signed in to. If you have several Google accounts, check the avatar at the top right.
Check your storage. The download is roughly the size of your mailbox, shown under Storage at one.google.com. Make sure your computer has at least that much free space, plus room to unzip it.
Work accounts may be blocked. Google Workspace administrators can turn off Takeout for their users. If Mail is missing from the list, ask your administrator.

Step-by-step: export Gmail to MBOX

A few notes on the options:

Labels. Exporting only the labels you need makes a smaller file that's quicker to download and search. When you select labels, messages that have several labels can appear in more than one label's export.
File size. Takeout splits large exports into several parts of the size you choose. Choosing 50 GB means fewer parts. Smaller parts are easier to download on an unreliable connection.
Destination. Instead of an email link you can send the export to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Box, but that counts against storage there.
File type. Choose .zip unless you specifically need .tgz. Both macOS and Windows open zip files natively, and InboxVue can read the MBOX straight out of the zip.

What's in the download

Unzip the file (or let your Mac do it automatically) and you'll see a Takeout folder containing Mail. Inside:

All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox: your email, when you exported everything.
Label-named files when you exported selected labels.
User Settings: small files with your filters, signatures and other settings. They aren't emails.

The MBOX file is plain text. Each message carries extra Gmail headers, including X-Gmail-Labels (the labels, such as Inbox,Important,Category Updates,Clients) and X-GM-THRID (Gmail's conversation ID).

How to open the Takeout MBOX

In your browser (fastest, keeps labels)

Open the MBOX viewer and drop the .mbox file. You can also drop the .zip parts without unzipping them. The first messages appear within seconds even for multi-gigabyte files, and the folder pane shows your Gmail labels: Inbox, Sent, Starred, the category tabs and your own nested labels. Conversations are grouped using Gmail's thread ID. Search works on senders, subjects, text and attachment names, with operators such as from:, has:attachment, label: and before:.

On a Mac, see the MBOX viewer for Mac page for Safari-specific tips.

In Thunderbird

Thunderbird can import the MBOX, with the ImportExportTools NG add-on or by copying the file into your profile. Labels are lost, and everything lands in one folder. Our Thunderbird MBOX guide has the details.

In Apple Mail

Choose File → Import Mailboxes → Files in mbox format and select the file. Mail creates an Import mailbox under On My Mac. Large Takeout files take a long time to import, and labels aren't kept.

For more methods, see how to open an MBOX file.

What you can do with the export

Find old emails with search and label filters, without restoring anything to Gmail.
Save attachments individually, or all at once with InboxVue Pro.
Create PDFs of a label, a date range or a conversation with MBOX to PDF, as one combined PDF or one file per email.
Make a spreadsheet of who wrote what and when with MBOX to CSV, for analysis, a contact list or a production log.

Troubleshooting

The export failed or never arrived. Check the Manage exports page in Takeout. Failed exports can be retried. Very large mailboxes sometimes take days.

There are several zip files. That's normal for big exports. Download all of them. Each part contains a portion of the data, and the MBOX may itself be split across parts. Drop all the parts into InboxVue at once.

The zip won't unzip on Windows. Windows' built-in extractor can struggle with very large archives. Use 7-Zip, or skip unzipping and drop the zip into the viewer.

The MBOX file is bigger than expected. "All mail" includes spam and trash. Exporting selected labels next time keeps it smaller.

Dates look shifted by a few hours. Gmail stores times with time zones. InboxVue shows times in your local zone and keeps the original time zone when you hover over a date.

Some messages are missing. Chats and Google Chat messages aren't included in the Mail export. Check that you didn't untick a label you needed.

Summary

Google Takeout gives you a full, portable copy of your Gmail as an MBOX file. Create the export with only Mail selected, download every part before the link expires, and open the result in a viewer that understands Gmail labels. From there, search it, save attachments, or convert what you need to PDF or CSV.

Google Takeout MBOX: export Gmail and open it