How can I download all the messages from a Gmail account, including the Sent folder items, when a normal POP fetch will only grab the inbox items?
My wife recently died, and she gave me access to her Gmail account. While I'm not sure whether or not I want to read the messages in there, I do want to make a backup copy of both the sent and received messages. Ideally, the backup copy would be accessible to me offline, though this is not strictly necessary.
I could grab the inbox via POP3, but that wouldn't get me the sent messages. I have desktops running Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
I have legal access to the account and I'm not interested in any future emails, only in the current state of her inbox.
Best Answer
You can setup an email client to download the entire contents of the account including sent mails if you configure IMAP access. The following settings work for me in Thunderbird although you can probably use any standard email client that you prefer.
Once you have downloaded the contents of the inbox you can then save and backup the contents of that mailbox by using the appropriate feature in the email client.
You will also want to check Settings->Labels and ensure all labels have "Show in IMAP" selected (by default, Chats are not).
Good luck to you and sorry for your loss.