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Introduction
Once you graduate or withdraw from school, you will only have access to your @mines account for a few months before it gets deactivated.
Here are two methods of "backing up" your Gmail before you lose access:
- via Mozilla Thunderbird
- Pros
- Works for any email provider.
- You can transfer specific emails instead of the entire inbox.
- Cons
- Multiple steps are involved.
- Need to install Mozilla Thunderbird.
- If the Thunderbird app is closed, the transfer process will terminate.
- via Google Transfer
- Pros
- Minimal steps involved.
- Can transfer both or either of your Gmail and Google Drive.
- Cons
- Works only for Google Accounts.
- Transfers the entire email inbox and doesn't have the option to specify.
This article goes through the steps of copying over your emails from your @mines Gmail account to another email account via Mozilla Thunderbird.
Go here if you want to use the Google Transfer method.
NOTE: Transfers like these can take multiple hours to days depending on the size of the transfer.
Environment
An internet-connected desktop or laptop with the ability to run the Mozilla Thunderbird app.
Instructions
Quick Overview of the Steps
- Download and install Mozilla Thunderbird.
- Add your @mines email account.
- Add your personal email account where you want the transferred emails to live.
- Select and copy over the emails that you wish to transfer.
Detailed Steps
- Download Mozilla Thunderbird from here and once installed, open the app.
- Next, we need to add the two email accounts - the one from where you want to copy over the mail (@mines) and the one where you want the copy to live (personal).
There are two ways of getting to Account Settings
- From the menu , go to Account Settings.
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OR
- Click on the settings/gear icon and then click on Account Settings.
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- Under Account Actions, select Add Mail Account.
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- Enter your email credentials and then hit Continue.
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- Choose IMAP as your configuration.
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- You will need to grant access to your account.
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- Click Finish and you are done setting up your first account. Follow the same steps for the second account as well.
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- Once you have both your email accounts set up with Thunderbird, we can now proceed to copy over your emails.
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- Select the folder under your @mines account that you wish to transfer. In this example, I will be selecting a Label that contains specific emails that I wish to transfer. You can transfer your entire inbox as well.
Note: This will be time-consuming depending on how many emails you are transferring.
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- Select all the emails by clicking on the right-hand panel and hitting ctrl + a.
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- Next, right-click on the selection and select Copy To and then choose the account you want to transfer to and then the particular location/folder.
Note: I created a Label in my personal email account which I will be using as the destination for the transferred emails to live. You can just directly transfer into the inbox as well.
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- You're all set and Mozilla Thunderbird will take care of the rest from here.
Note: You can minimize the app, but do not close it because the transfer process will terminate.