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Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

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Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#131

Post by justincormack »

resu_nimda wrote: post #90
lukasm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have ambivalent feelings about this. All in all, this is my stuff.

To play devil's advocate - you willingly gave it to them, with almost zero contractual expectations. In a technical sense it is their stuff, and they have graciously implemented a feature allowing you to retrieve a copy of it. I definitely agree that it's the "right" thing to do, but this kind of comment speaks of entitlement and lack of personal responsibility. They're offering a service, they don't have any inheren…

I am paying them for this so I expect more.

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#132

Post by bsdetector »

Nux wrote: post #114
menacestudio wrote: post #49

Is it just me or does anyone else think that Google is possibly thinking of dropping Gmail service as well? Think Google Reader.

Nah, if they close down gmail they're going to lose a lot of people. They still have not brainwashed enough with G+. I do suspect though that gmail's pop3/imap will go the way of the xmpp.

I've been using gmail exclusively on my iphone for years with no ads. They've lost whole dollars providing this service to me.

But they want to make money off me, not lose me as a potential revenue.

So my bet is this is in preparation for showing 'sponsored' emails in your imap/pop3. "If you don't like it, just download all your emails and use another service" will be a talking point to suppress outrage, knowing that few people will actually go to the trouble of changing their email address. Fanboys will lap it up.

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#133

Post by ithkuil »

nanidin wrote: post #95
ithkuil wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to be able to access your mails without having to log in?

No, I would like for this tool to work with deactivated accounts so that data can be retrieved in the event of Google deciding to deactivate the account.

IMHO those two issues are orthogonal.

You could achieve the same goal if they let you reactivate the account and then retrieve your data (either with this tool or with IMAP).

I suspect that the tool works by taking the data from the same storage that is used for active accounts. So, assuming that your data is still there, they would have two options: a) write another tool that exports data from some backup or b) first restore the data and then export it.

In any case I don't find your feature request to be relevant to this topic. Sorry for nitpicking :-)

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#134

Post by thomasahle »

nanidin wrote: post #19

Unfortunately this requires you to be able to log in. I had an account (with the same name I use here) mysteriously stop being able to log in about 6 years ago. I lost all of my email, contacts, and calendars. I was never able to find out why the account was shut down, I'm guessing it was a ToS violation for something I did several months before I got banned (made 100+ gmail accounts with my invites, didn't use them…

I was once locked out of Google Groups. No idea why, I used it very little. My solution was to grab a free Google Apps of Business trial. Now I had direct access to support and could get unblocked within a day.

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#135

Post by rhizome »

MBlume wrote: post #125
rhizome wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person who lived by this "technical" principle would likely find that their friends no longer wanted to loan them anything. After all, there is no "inherent obligation" for you to return anything, right?

What? Yes, there is, that's what "loan" means.

It's only because data does not have legal status as property. It doesn't keep people from feeling a similar degree of ownership over the data they store with Google et al, though, and I think it points to a democratic desire for these data-retrieval acts and implementations to be more than goodwill. The third-party doctrine is only a convention, after all.

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#137

Post by gonzo »

jfb wrote: post #92
peterwwillis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative to this would be fetchmail and maildrop. The MTA (fetchmail) downloads the messages periodically and delivers them to the MDA (maildrop) which can store them in Maildir format (each mail is an individual file). Fetchmail actually has weird bugs with some mails, so I made my own version in Perl, but there's other options out there. Alternatives: http://imapsync.lamiral.info/ http://offlineimap.org/ http…

Please don't use fetchmail -- it loses data. Use offlineimap or mbsync instead.

fetchmail is a complete POS. Don't use it.

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#138

Post by tonfa »

rhizome wrote: post #123
resu_nimda wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you have the expectation of an implicit agreement? There is no implicit agreement, that's an unfounded assumption by the user. I imagine they could completely shut down all unpaid gmail access at any moment with no legal implications (though I haven't read the fine print, and in that extreme case the courts would probably step in just to keep the country running smoothly). What precedent is there to support…

If Google simply shut down Gmail, their stockholders would pretty much fire the entire leadership of the company. It would be professional suicide to approve something like that.

I wonder if Page, Brin and Schmidt (the majority stockholders) would fire Larry, Sergei and Eric.

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#139

Post by sologrrl »

rhizome wrote: post #123
resu_nimda wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you have the expectation of an implicit agreement? There is no implicit agreement, that's an unfounded assumption by the user. I imagine they could completely shut down all unpaid gmail access at any moment with no legal implications (though I haven't read the fine print, and in that extreme case the courts would probably step in just to keep the country running smoothly). What precedent is there to support…

If Google simply shut down Gmail, their stockholders would pretty much fire the entire leadership of the company. It would be professional suicide to approve something like that.

The founder's shares count 10 times the voting cloud of the normal shareholders resulting in around 66% majority for them.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/technology/google-earnings/

Re: Download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data

#140

Post by wildfire »

davidgerard wrote: post #64
ollyculverhouse wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Google keep a copy of your mail if your account was deactivated for 6 years? Isn't that asking a bit much considering you were the one that broke the ToS?

They certainly keep deleted Google+ for over two years.

How do you know? Was it in click-through agreement when signing up?
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