Step 1
Open an MBOX file
Open the MBOX file inside your Google Takeout download.
Drop an MBOX file here
Your archive stays on this computer.
Where to find your MBOX file
Already have the file — a Google Takeout download is a .zip with a .mbox inside. Unzip it and open the .mbox here.
Need to create one — in Google Takeout, deselect all, then select Mail. Full steps below.
Have an Outlook file instead — a .pst opens here, or use the PST viewer.
Have single messages instead — loose .eml and .msg files belong in the EML and MSG viewer, which takes a whole folder in one go.
Not supported — OST and OLM files.
How to get an MBOX file out of Gmail
Gmail builds the file through Google Takeout and emails you a download link when it is ready, which takes minutes for a small mailbox and up to a day or two for a large one.
- Open takeout.google.com and click Deselect all.
- Tick Mail, then continue to the export.
- Unzip the download and open the .mbox inside it.
To export fewer messages, click All Mail data included before you continue and pick the labels you want, adding Sent alongside them if you plan to run the reply check. The export is a snapshot of the mailbox at the moment Google built it, so anything filed or deleted afterwards is not in it.
Outlook exports a .pst rather than an MBOX. Open it in the PST viewer.
Other ways to open an MBOX file
Use a mail client for an archive you plan to keep replying from.
- Thunderbird — Copy the .mbox into the profile’s Mail folder, or install the ImportExportTools NG add-on and import it. Thunderbird stores mail in mbox natively, so the archive becomes a working mailbox you can reply from.
Replying to the people who are waiting
An export can help you identify the people who never wrote back and the ones still waiting for a response, but you still have to hand-write every email in Gmail.
Connect dreamif.ai to Gmail and it flags contacts you haven’t heard from once they pass the follow-up threshold you set, then drafts the next message for you to review. You decide whether to edit, send, or skip it. Ask dreamif.ai what it can do with your inbox.
Questions, answered.
Takeout writes each message once and stores everything Gmail knew about it inside the message: Inbox or Sent, Unread, the tab Gmail sorted it into, and any label you applied yourself. Gmail labels are not folders, so one message can have several at once, and the counts beside them add up to more than the message total.