How to open a Gmail Takeout MBOX export step by step

From requesting the export to reading the messages: how Gmail data arrives from Takeout and how to open the MBOX file inside.

Updated 3 min readGmail
Monitor on a marble table showing an export ready page with mail archive downloads in progress

Google Takeout is the official way to download a copy of your Gmail. It packs your mail into an MBOX file, which you can keep as a backup, move to another provider or read offline. Here is the full process, from the request to the first message on screen.

Request the Gmail export before using MBox Viewer

  1. Go to takeout.google.com and sign in to the account you want to export.
  2. Click Deselect all, then scroll down and tick Mail.
  3. Click All Mail data included if you only want certain labels. Otherwise leave everything selected.
  4. Click Next step. Choose to receive a download link by email, export once, the .zip file type and a file size.
  5. Click Create export.

Google then prepares the archive. Small mailboxes can be ready within minutes. Large ones can take hours or even a couple of days. You will receive an email when it is ready.

Download and extract the Takeout file for MBox Viewer

The download link is only valid for a limited time, so do not leave it for long. Large exports are split into several ZIP files according to the size you selected.

Extract each ZIP. Inside you will find a folder structure like this:

Takeout / Mail / All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox

If your export came in several parts, look in each one for the Mail folder. Other services you selected will have their own folders next to it.

Windows users: extract to a short path such as C:\Takeout. The long folder and file names can exceed the Windows path limit when extracted deep inside Downloads.

Open the Gmail MBOX file in MBox Viewer

  1. Download MBox Viewer from this site and extract the ZIP.
  2. Run mboxview64.exe (or mboxview.exe on 32-bit Windows).
  3. Click File → Select folder… and choose the Mail folder from your Takeout export.
  4. Click All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox in the archive tree. The first opening of a large export takes a while as an index is built; the status bar shows the mail count.

Click a column header to sort by date, sender or subject, or use search to find a person, subject or phrase. On a Mac, import the file into Apple Mail or Thunderbird instead, as described in our Mac article.

What happens to Gmail labels in MBox Viewer

Gmail labels are not folders, so Takeout does not create one file per label. Every message appears once in the single MBOX file, and its labels are listed in a header called X-Gmail-Labels.

MBox Viewer reads these labels, so you can browse the export by label much as you did in Gmail. You can also open the raw header fields of any message and look for the X-Gmail-Labels line, where labels such as Inbox, Sent, Important or your own names are separated by commas.

Spam and Trash in MBox Viewer exports

As the file name says, the default export includes messages in Spam and Trash. If you see unexpected junk, that is the reason. To leave them out, choose specific labels in step 3 of the export request.

Why the MBox Viewer file is bigger than your Gmail storage

Attachments are stored as Base64 text in MBOX, which adds around a third to their size. A mailbox that uses 6 GB in Gmail can produce an MBOX file of 8 GB or more. Check that you have enough disk space before extracting.

Keeping the export safe for MBox Viewer

  • Store at least two copies on different drives.
  • Use a drive formatted as NTFS, APFS or exFAT. FAT32 cannot hold files over 4 GB.
  • Repeat the export from time to time if you keep using the account.

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