Script to sort your Gmail messages by size using Google docs

[TaoPhoenix]

As for sending, I rarely send an actual file attachment, just an email with a link to the file saved in Gdocs.
I think - but am not sure - that Gdrive could help to make this easier to do. Still experimenting with it though.

-IainB (May 04, 2012, 07:24 PM)

I dunno, I trust a nice honest email with an attachment more than "some ethereal link to the Cloud". I am sensitive to Cloud Lock-in, it feels like that Arnold S. movie on Mars where they started charging for Air. I just need to ditch the emails from 2007-2009 and then I'll be okay. Save, Save Attachments, then file them.

[IainB]

I think I have over 160,000 in my total box. I inherited a colleague's email box as part of the total. Wheeee!   
...
...40% of my emails have attachments! : )

-TaoPhoenix (May 04, 2012, 07:26 PM)

Wow. You need an automated bulk/batch operation to cope with that.
There is a script way to automate the sending of file attachments to Gdrive, which is roughly one-half of the manual backup procedure I described above. It is described here:

• Instantly Send Any Gmail Attachment to Google Drive

I haven't used this script yet, but it will at least automate getting all the files onto Gdrive, though the filenames will presumably be whatever they were in the email - so maybe not very meaningful for your file search/retrieval identification purposes.

The script's author, Amit Agarwal, often blogs about some really useful stuff. He's the guy who wrote the script about how to sort your Gmail Messages by size using Google Docs, which I did the opening post of this discussion on. I have had his blog subscribed to my Google Reader feed aggregator for a long time.

[IainB]

...I needed to do a back up of everything anyway, so I decided to use Mail Store to download all mail and then delete the older mail. Unfortunately mailstore gave a bunch of error messages which I haven't had time to look at yet so I'm stalled.

-tomos (April 25, 2012, 12:01 PM)

Here's a thought - might be useful in your case. (See penultimate point in the list below.)
Some years back, being a bit paranoid about backup and security, yet occasionally needing to enable controlled and easy access to my email for coworkers on certain projects (for them to read/share/use some of my incoming email), I started to use Google Groups to cover both bases.

Google Groups can offer several potentially handy uses/advantages: (not a fully comprehensive list)

• You set up a Google Group. The members of the Group will be yourself (as Manager/Owner) and anyone you allow to join as a member - people you want to have access to certain emails and their attachments. Managers can set/adjust membership rules, remove members as and when needed, and control their read/write access to the group, set up moderation, set public/private status, etc..
• The Manager used to be able to simply set/enrol someone as a member, and they could be auto-emailed that they had been enrolled, but Google removed that facility (I think to avoid spamming) and members must now request membership of the Group - and then the Manager has to accept them first, before they can be enrolled.
• You can delegate Management status to other members of the group, to share in the group administration efforts.
• You can also delegate Ownership status to someone else (they become a co-Owner), and then remove yourself from a Group, thus effectively transferring the group to someone else and having nothing else to do with it.
  (Security note: This means that a co-Owner could remove you as a member of the Group too.)
• You can set an incoming filter in your Gmail for certain emails, and forward them to the Group.
• The email and any attachment are sent as-is, and become a post to the Group.
• All members will be able to read the emails and view/download the attachments.
• If links to the attachments have been used in the email - attachments which have been saved to Gdrive (say) or elsewhere in the Cloud - then that is the file that the users will be able to access.
• Members can engage in discussion in the Group, regarding a particular email (post), and other members can elect to be automatically emailed with such discussions (so no-one gets left out of the loop) on an instant or daily or weekly basis.
• Members can also select email addresses to be sent a copy of a post as they are making it - in a discussion thread - and those addressees will be sent a copy of that post.
• There doesn't yet seem to be a defined cap/limit on emails and attachments sent to a Group, so the group could become a long-term archive. (Potentially very handy.)
• Google Groups are not usually blocked by corporate security firewalls, so you can access a Group whereas Gmail or other webmail services are often blocked. (This could be convenient (say) when working on contract to a client with strict network access/security controls.)

[IainB]

I dunno, I trust a nice honest email with an attachment more than "some ethereal link to the Cloud".

-TaoPhoenix (May 04, 2012, 07:31 PM)

There's no real reason (that I can see) to distrust the Cloud approach, and it is arguably a lot more efficient on several counts than the usual email+data attachment approach.

The thing to ensure would seem to be efficient and reliable backup/recovery of email and attachments.
For local PC backup: this can be achieved for Gmail and Gdrive by the use of:
(a) local backup of email via an email client app, and
(b) local backup of Gdrive via Gdrive Sync (though I am still trialling the latter in "discovery" mode, so it is not an absolute known quantity for me yet).

[IainB]

I just spotted this in my Google Reader: Finding Large Attachments and Emails in Google Mail/Gmail
You don't really need the script.
I didn't know enough about Gmail search to realise that it could be that simple.    

[IainB]

Archiver for Gmail - This looked like a potentially really useful script.
It's apparently currently only available as a Chrome webstore extension, but once you install it using Chrome/Chromium, it operates on your Gmail account and you don't need to use Chrome/Chromium for it after that (I use Firefox for accessing Gmail). The script is like rust - it just sits there operating continuously and intermittently in the background, regardless of whether you are using Gmail or are asleep at the time. Because I am paranoid, I did not set the script to automatically delete stuff once it had been archived - I shall check/do that manually.

From the Chrome webstore:

Archiver for Gmail is a script that will seamlessly analyze your inbox and move all the big attachments to your Google drive.

NEW STUFF:
* Super simple, super cool new "one-button-mode"
* Archiver for GMail has now automatic/copying background features to copy attachments!!
* After some feedback on the poor documentation of the functions I added some labels to each field to disclose what it actually does!
* Uninstall instructions are embedded in the app (also including the instructions on how to remove the annoying apps script emails).

The script will also save an html copy of the whole thread, so that you are good to delete every email containing big attachments (this can be even done automatically). Finally, all the messages containing relevant attachments will be labelled, so that you can index your inbox even better.