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I have an Android 4.1 phone. When I typically login into my gmail app, even if I am offline, I can see / read already downloaded emails. So, I have those two questions:

  • Where are those emails saved locally on my phone? Is there a way to access this folder within Android or through a PC?
  • Is there a way to backup all emails downloaded / stored on the phone, while still remaining offline?
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  • All the Gmail on your phone, is already in your phone... All of it is backed up on Google's server. I'm not sure you can do what you want to do at all. It's not the way it works. You could backup the DATA portion of Gmail and that will be all your mail, you'd need something like Titanium Backup and you'd need root access. – RossC Jun 30 '14 at 10:40
  • Imagine the following scenario. Some Gmail emails downloaded on the phone. Then GMail online account is deleted, when phone is offline. Gmail emails still on the phone (since it has not been connected to the internet) => backup - view offline emails on the phone – Alexandros Jun 30 '14 at 11:25
  • They stay on my phone when the Internet is turned off... Not every one of the tens of thousands of emails I have in the account, but a group within the Synch Settings range (eg 30 Days) in the settings. It should do this to begin with tbh, I'm very confused. Sorry I can't be of more help, all my devices do this anyway. – RossC Jun 30 '14 at 13:00
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You can use for this:

adb backup -noapk -noshared -f gmail.ab com.google.android.gm

would backup all data of the GMail app to your PC, storing it in a file named gmail.ab in the current working directory. A restore of that snapshot then is as easy as running

adb restore gmail.ab

Note that this will include all the settings of the GMail app.

If you prefer doing the same via an app on your device, take a look at Helium Backup.

Without root, it's not possible to access the corresponding folder on your device directly (which would be found below /data/data/com.google.android.gm and be owned by the GMail app, which forbids access for other apps/users, including the shell user).

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  • Good luck! To get started with ADB (in case you didn't already do that), be welcome to visit our adb tag-wiki for pointers. And btw: you even could restore that backup to a different device for testing etc, if you do not want to overwrite your "main device" GMail data. Should even do in some emulator. – Izzy♦ Jun 30 '14 at 14:43
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If I understand correctly you're wanting to download all of your Gmail emails?

If so, I've used this tool before in the past to download my Gmail emails and it works well:

http://www.gmail-backup.com/

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  • No I do not. GMail (online) gives you the ability to download everything in your account. What I want is to take a snapshot of the emails stored locally on my phone and I want to do it when offline. – Alexandros Jun 30 '14 at 9:53

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