What is this icon?

[oceangirl10]

I tried to save all emails using Google Takeout. The folder titled Email had only this icon in it (see attached). How do you open this to get the emails. Clicking it resulted in Apple Mail opening, but would do nothing else. The whole point was to save my emails in a readable/searchable form, hopefully to select all and save to PDF.

Gmail forum did not have an attachment link so I could not provide this attachment. I think someone here will know.

 

[usagora]

Have you followed this procedure?

Import or export mailboxes in Mail on Mac

Use Mail on your Mac to import emails and mailboxes in Apple Mail or mbox format and to export mailboxes in mbox format.

support.apple.com

 

[NoBoMac]

^^^This.

Per Google, Takeout of email will export "Messages and attachments in your Gmail account in MBOX format." That's what you have and will need to save the attachment then run above steps.

It's a pretty standard format (except for Exchange/Outlook) for email mailboxes.

 

[oceangirl10]

Have you followed this procedure?

Import or export mailboxes in Mail on Mac

Use Mail on your Mac to import emails and mailboxes in Apple Mail or mbox format and to export mailboxes in mbox format.

support.apple.com

In the Mail folder of Takeout, the mbox icon is what appears there. When I click on it, the attached screenshot is what appears. My goal is to get all of my emails into pdf or at least .eml so I can convert to pdf. How is that accomplished?

 

[usagora]

In the Mail folder of Takeout, the mbox icon is what appears there. When I click on it, the attached screenshot is what appears. My goal is to get all of my emails into pdf or at least .eml so I can convert to pdf. How is that accomplished?

I'm not sure I follow. You need to download the exported mbox file to a local drive on your computer. Google should have emailed you a link to download a .zip file which you then download, open (will extract automatically), and find the "Mail" folder which contains the mbox file. Then follow the procedure in the article I linked to import it into Mail. After you've imported all those emails into Mail, then you can follow this procedure to convert them to PDF:

Save emails as files or PDFs in Mail on Mac

In Mail on your Mac, save emails as PDFs or as files to share or import into another email app.

support.apple.com

Just tested downloading the mbox file myself:

1. Received Email in my Gmail inbox

2. Here's what I see when I open the email:

3. Here's the page the "Download your files" takes me to:

4.Here's the file path for the mbox file (I just exported my inbox to save time):

 

[oceangirl10]

When I click that icon, it opens my Mail, which contains whatever my current open gmail happens to be.

 

[NoBoMac]

Don't click on the icon.

As has been mentioned, the only way you can view those emails is to open Mail app and follow the instructions to import an mbox file. You then will have a new sidebar mailbox in Mail with the exported contents. You then can follow the steps to export/save as PDFs from that.

The mbox file cannot be viewed nor printed by double clicking on it.

 

[usagora]

When I click that icon, it opens my Mail, which contains whatever my current open gmail happens to be.

Did you not read the linked article from my first post? Here's a screenshot:

Import or export mailboxes in Mail on Mac

Use Mail on your Mac to import emails and mailboxes in Apple Mail or mbox format and to export mailboxes in mbox format.

support.apple.com

 

[oceangirl10]

Don't click on the icon.

As has been mentioned, the only way you can view those emails is to open Mail app and follow the instructions to import an mbox file. You then will have a new sidebar mailbox in Mail with the exported contents. You then can follow the steps to export/save as PDFs from that.

The mbox file cannot be viewed nor printed by double clicking on it.

Thanks for the explanation.
1. When I open Mail app, I see the contents of whatever gmail account I have open. Should I have a Mail account without this in order to follow the instructions to import an mbox file?
2. I only want to import specific emails, not the entire account, to make the pdf file. Is that possible? Should I put all of those emails into a folder within the email account first (these particular ones are not a gmail account, they are a paid email account)?

 

[NoBoMac]

They are in the mailbox "Import" on the side bar. See the image/instructions in post #8.

You have to import all the emails. Once you're done processing, can delete the "import" mailbox and wipe away all of the imports.

 

[oceangirl10]

Thanks for the explanation.
1. When I open Mail app, I see the contents of whatever gmail account I have open. Should I have a Mail account without this in order to follow the instructions to import an mbox file?
2. I only want to import specific emails, not the entire account, to make the pdf file. Is that possible? Should I put all of those emails into a folder within the email account first (these particular ones are not a gmail account, they are a paid email account)?

NoBoMac, could you answer this as well? You explain well. I need to know what exactly to click to get this done.

 

[NoBoMac]

See post #10 above. Only have to click on "Import" on the left sidebar to access the imported mbox file.

 

[oceangirl10]

See post #10 above. Only have to click on "Import" on the left sidebar to access the imported mbox file.

You don't have to specify where to retrieve it from?

 

[NoBoMac]

Not sure what you're are asking.

All you have to do is "Import Mailboxes", select the .mbox file you got from Google. There will then be "Import" on the left. Navigate that and you'll see the imported mailboxes and emails. If you don't see "Import", expand the "On My Mac" tab on the left/sidebar.

But, if what's in the mbox file is just your Gmail account you see in Mail app, you could just select the emails there and export as PDF (File > Export PDF).