PubRescue Save Gmail emails as PDF, via Google Takeout
Gmail has no button to save many emails as PDF at once. The way around it is to export your mail and convert the export here.
- Go to Google Takeout, deselect everything, and select Mail. You can limit the export to certain labels.
- Create the export and download it when Google emails you the link. Unzip it.
- Find the .mbox file in Takeout/Mail, for example All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox.
Using Thunderbird? Each folder is an mbox file without an extension (like Inbox) in your profile's Mail or ImapMail folder. Apple Mail's Export Mailbox makes a folder ending in .mbox; the file to choose is the one named mbox inside it (right-click, Show Package Contents).
Convert MBOX to PDF, step by step
- Drop the .mbox file onto the box at the top of this page, or click Choose files. A progress bar shows while the mailbox is indexed.
- Find the messages. Type a name, an address, a subject word or a date in the search box. Tick Search message text too to search inside the messages as well.
- Select them. Tick individual messages, or click Select all to select every result shown.
- Click Save selected as PDF. A print view opens and your browser's print dialog appears.
- Choose PDF. Chrome and Edge: Destination > Save as PDF. Firefox: Save to PDF. Safari on a Mac: the PDF button at the bottom-left, then Save as PDF.
Each email in the PDF has its own header block with subject, from, to, cc and date, followed by the message and the list of attachment names.
500 messages per PDF: work in batches
Each PDF holds up to 500 messages. A browser print job with thousands of emails gets slow and unreliable, so larger sets are best saved in batches.
Search makes batching easy. Narrow by sender or subject, or by a year or month in the search box, select all the results, and save. Then change the search and save the next batch. You end up with a set of PDFs that are easier to share and open than one giant file.
Big Takeout exports open fine
The mailbox is read in pieces, not loaded into memory all at once, so even multi-gigabyte exports open in a browser tab. A computer is more comfortable than a phone for large mailboxes. If you just want to browse, see the MBOX viewer page.
Your email stays on your computer
Everything runs in your browser. Your mailbox is read on your own device and is never uploaded to our server or stored. Only this page and its scripts come from us, and the PDF is made by your browser's print function on your computer. For a whole mailbox of personal mail, that matters.
What to expect
- Attachments: the PDF lists them by name; picture attachments (JPEG, PNG, GIF) are printed after the list. Other attachments aren't embedded. Open a message to download its attachments.
- Remote images are blocked for privacy and won't be in the PDF unless loaded first.
- Layout: complex HTML emails print the way your browser renders them, and fonts follow the browser.
- Encrypted messages aren't decrypted.
- Need the original files? Export selected as .eml (ZIP) gives one .eml file per message, which opens in Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird. Export large sets in batches, since a ZIP of thousands of messages uses a lot of memory.
Single emails rather than a mailbox? Use EML to PDF.