Gmail size limitation

[HipHoper]

Oh C**P !!!

I made SUCH a mistake while playing with my gmail account and outlook 2013.
i backed up the outlook folder in the middle of transferring data to unique folders and needed to reformat the computer and just then noticed that i backed up OST and not PST !!! RAWR !!!
I think that part of the data was transferred to outlook.com account I've experimented with 2 days ago....Hope to restore it from there......

[HipHoper]

I GIVE UP !!!

This process of downloading emails through the IMAP protocol is not working flawlessly with large amount of emails from my experience. I tried several clients with my mere 3GB account and it took AGES (And didn't finished). It seems a job that the client won't pay for all the time that will be spent on doing it, And I can't even promise it will succeed.....
Something you got to know your limitations......Maybe I'll just offer him to arrange his web gmail folder for deletion or something like that to cover some of the effort i've put into this all thing

[Zonie]

Sorry to hear about all the problems with the gmail account. IMHO, I have seen nothing but problems with IMAP accounts. I have used strictly POP accounts with a 99.9% problem free. You may want to go this route with the gmail.

[HipHoper]

Thanks for the sympathy Zonie.
I prefer not to get into something that I'm not sure will work in a stable way because it means troubles to me.
Maybe for backup needs pop3 is the way to go.

[HipHoper]

Update :
I suggested the client to open another gmail account and transfer emails by years to the new account, But then I saw that it's not that easy to transfer a group of manually selected emails and that you need to create a filter and that the filter doesn't show all the emails from a specific perios of time so :
1. I downloaded thunderbird portable
2. I configured the gmail IMAP (but only incoming server - So I won't delete something or ruin folder structure)
3. I split all of him emails into quarters on the gmail via browser (about 1500 emails in a quarter)
4. In settings-labels I marked only my folders to be synced via IMAP (Although the inbox is non UN-tickable).
5. started the download process

Whats annoying is that it downloads the inbox and i can not unsunscribe to it and it's quite big (6.2GB......)
Anyway I cross my fingers and hope it'll finish the syncing in the next few days and then I can present to this client all his emails untill the end of 2012 in a portable version

[HipHoper]

I managed to UN sync the inbox (After it's been downloaded lol).
Anyway backup is in progress and it's looking good. (Needed to manually choose what to sync in some of the folder who did not sync EVEN THOUGH I've subscribed to them....
It suppose to finifh by tommorow's night.

Thank you all for your help and encouragement

[Zonie]

Glad to hear it is working out and way to hang in there. You did good as they say.

[HipHoper]

Thanks Zonie. Don't ask what happend.......
After backing the thunderbird portable with all the 29GB of emails to 3 backup folder (Just in case),And I thought I was safe, I noticed once I change the IMAP settings - ALL THE MAIL IS DELETED LOCALLY !!!!! W*F !!!!! I didn't delete the account, Just changed the port of the incoming mail server so the client won't mess the account while he watches the local downloaded folders. I JUST COULDN'T BELIEVE MY EYES !!! I tried the 2nd backup I had and it DELETED IT TOO !!!!
As I saw this I made another 2 fresh backups from the 3rd backup i had left,And I've installed some thunderbird addon called "batch copy" that copies the IMAP folders and their structure locally (I'm on the 4th hour of the copy, It's about 2 more hours to go).......Seems like this thing is never gonna end......lol