How to download Gmail on PC

Gmail is Google’s home web mail service and, by its very nature, it is accessible directly via the browser, without having to download and install anything on your PC. This is undoubtedly convenient, but you, finding more “orderly” the use of individual applications to access the various services you use, would like to understand if there is a way to download Gmail on your PC and use it as if it were a ‘ stand-alone application.

You rushed to the web looking for information about it and ended up on this tutorial of mine. How do you say? The situation is precisely this and you would like to know if I can actually help you or not? Of course yes, God forbid!

In fact, if you dedicate a little of your attention to me, I can explain how to use Gmail as a program and, still on the subject, how to download the emails hosted by the service in some of the main email clients. Come on then: position yourself comfortably, take a few free minutes just for you and concentrate on reading what is reported below. I am sure that, in the end, you will be able to say that you are very happy and satisfied with the results obtained. Let it bet?

Index

• How to download Gmail on PC for free
• How to download Gmail mail on PC
  • From the Web
  • From Outlook
  • From Thunderbird
  • From Apple Mail

How to download Gmail on PC for free

As mentioned at the beginning of the tutorial, Gmail is a Web mail service and, as such, it is not available in the form of dedicated computer software .

To access Gmail from a computer, therefore, you need to use a Web browser (eg Chrome ) and it is not possible – at least at the moment – to rely on official apps of the service as it happens in the mobile environment on Android and iOS / iPadOS .

But be careful: this does not mean that it is not possible in any way to download Gmail on your PC . Until a few years ago, in fact, Gmail was also usable in the form of an app for the Chrome browser, and the latter worked even without an Internet connection.

Today the aforementioned app has been removed from the Chrome Web Store, but using Gmail offline continues to be possible. The functionality offered by the extension has in fact been incorporated directly into the mail service, so just activate it in the relative settings to be able to use it. It works on various browsers and not just on Chrome.

Instead, I would stay away from many of the unofficial clients for Gmail that are on the Net: since, to work, they require access to the Google account, better avoid them. If you find one you like, make sure it is open source (therefore with source code that can be examined by the community) or that it is produced by a super-reliable company.

Returning to us and to the official features to use Gmail offline, if you are interested you can activate the use of Gmail even when disconnected by doing the following: open the browser, go to the Gmail home page and log into your account ( if necessary).

Once logged in, click on the gear wheel icon located at the top right and press the View all settings button in the menu that opens. Now that you see all the Gmail settings, select the Offline tab , put a check mark next to the Enable offline mail box and adjust the settings related to the use of the function, acting on the options that you find in the Synchronization settings section and indicating how long do you want to keep emails when there is no Internet connection and whether or not you want to download attachments.

In conclusion, specify if after disconnecting from the Google account you want to keep the data offline on your computer or if you prefer to remove them, by selecting the option of your interest in the Security section , and save the changes, by first clicking on the Save changes button and then on that OK .

If you want a hint, after enabling the use of Gmail offline, add a desktop shortcut to the email service, so you can access it even faster and faster and similar to as if it were a PC program. To find out how to do this, you can follow the instructions I gave you in my specific guide on how to put Gmail on your desktop .

If you change your mind, you can disable the feature that allows you to use Gmail offline at any time. To do this, first remove any offline data that may be present on your computer, following the instructions I gave you in my guide on how to delete browsing data . Then, access the Offline tab of the Gmail settings again as I explained earlier, remove the check mark from the Activate offline box and press the Save changes button .

As an alternative to using the offline e-mail service, you can download Gmail on your PC also configuring its use in an e-mail client , that is a computer software that allows you to manage e-mail boxes directly from the desktop, even without having to be connected to the Internet. If the question interests you and you want to deepen it, you can consult my review on the best email clients and my article on how to set up Gmail .

How to download Gmail mail on PC

Still talking about how to download Gmail on your PC, let’s now find out how to download the emails received, so that you can keep a copy of them for archival purposes. Below you will find explained how to proceed, both by acting from the Gmail web interface and by using the main e-mail clients.

From the Web

To download the email received on Gmail from the service’s Web interface , first connect to the home page of the service and log in to your account (if necessary). Subsequently, locate the message you intend to download on your PC, looking for it in the Inbox or in any case in the folder of your interest that you can select through the side menu, then click on it to open it.

Once the above steps have been completed, click on the button with the three vertical dots located at the top right and select the item Download the message from the contextual menu that opens: by doing so, the email will be downloaded in EML format and if you have not changed the default browser settings it will be saved in the Downloads folder on your computer.

Eventually, you can also decide to save the email as a PDF document. To do this, click on the printer icon at the top right, select the PDF printer from the Printer drop-down menu and press the Print button to start the saving process. Then indicate the folder where to keep the PDF file, press the Save button and that’s it.

From Outlook

If you want to download the Gmail mail on your PC using the Microsoft Outlook client , instead, the first thing you need to do is to start the program, locate the message on which to go to act in the folder dedicated to the inbox or in the one of your interest that you can select through the side menu (if it is not visible, click on the arrow at the top left) and select it.

After completing the above steps, click on the File menu at the top left, select the Save as item from the latter and indicate the location and format (TXT, EML , HTML, MHT) in which you want to save the ’email, then press the Save button and that’s it.

From Thunderbird

Even if you use Thunderbird , Mozilla’s home email client , you can download the emails on your computer to your computer. To do this, start the program, locate the message you want to save in the folder dedicated to the inbox or in another location that you can select through the side menu and right-click on it, then select the item Save as from the context menu that is shown to you.

After completing the above steps, select the destination folder , choose one of the supported formats (EML, HTML or TXT) and, finally, click on the Save button , in order to confirm the saving of the email on your PC . Easier than that?

From Apple Mail

Do you have a Mac, have you configured the use of Gmail with Apple Mail and, therefore, would like to understand how to download emails locally? I’ll explain immediately how to proceed, it’s child’s play. First, start the program, on your computer, then locate the email you intend to save locally from the section dedicated to the inbox or from another folder accessible via the side menu (if it is not visible, you can enable it from the menu View ) and select it.

Then, click on the File menu located at the top left, choose the option Save with the name attached to it, indicate the location on your Mac in which to save the email, specify the output format (EML, RTF or TXT) and click on the Save button .

If you then want to save the email as a PDF file, you can always do so by selecting the email message of your interest, clicking on the File menu and choosing the Export as PDF option from it . Then, indicate the location where you want to save the final file and press the Save button . Done!