Transfer Outlook Emails to Gmail: Outlook to Gmail Migration Tool

Import PST file to Gmail directly, without dragging folders through Outlook

The usual no-cost advice on how to import PST to Gmail is to add the Gmail account to Outlook over IMAP and drag the old folders across. Google has a utility too, Google Workspace Migration for Microsoft Outlook, and documents it for Workspace accounts and their administrators.

By hand

Gmail added to Outlook, folders dragged over

You connect Gmail in Outlook, open the old data file next to it and move folders from one pane to the other.

Outlook must be on the PC with the Gmail account added to it
Folders are picked up and dropped by hand
One hosting company's guide suggests letting a big PST run overnight

From the file

The program reads the PST and fills Gmail

The program carries the mail out of the data file and puts it into Gmail under labels.

Outlook can be shut, or absent from the PC
Everything you ticked goes in the same run
Sign-in is by app password

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A large PST gets into Gmail without you watching the daily cap

The program sends about 500 MB of mail and then waits for tomorrow. That is the pace at which you can transfer Outlook emails to Gmail once the file is measured in gigabytes. Google publishes a 500 MB per day IMAP upload limit. To stay under it, the program adds up today's total from its log and holds back a message that would not fit into what is left. The run then pauses until midnight on your PC's clock. Leave it open and it goes on by itself. The figures below are plain arithmetic from 500 MB, and yours follow from the size of your PST.

A 2 GB PST needs about 4 days
At 5 GB, count on roughly 10 days
10 GB takes around 20 days
What was sent on earlier days sits in Gmail while the rest waits

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How to transfer Outlook emails to Gmail, starting from the export

Export your Outlook mail to a PST file

Download Email Migration Tool and install it on 64-bit Windows 10 or 11. Then get the file ready. In classic Outlook go to File > Open & Export > Import/Export and save the mailbox as an Outlook Data File (.pst). Do you already keep an archive.pst or a backup copy? Then skip the export. Quit Outlook when it is done.

Create a Google app password

Gmail expects an app password from a program like this one, and your usual password will not do. Click How to create one under the password field, and Google's instructions for it open. Google asks for 2-Step Verification on the account before it issues one. Google's help lists work and school accounts among those where the app password option can be missing, which is why the program connects personal Gmail accounts only.

Add the PST and connect Gmail

On the screen Import email files into a mailbox, start in the From panel. Click Add files and choose the .pst, or drop it onto the zone Drop PST, MBOX or EML files here. During the count the row reads Reading..., and the number of messages then takes its place. In To, set Email service to Gmail. An address ending in @gmail.com selects it for you. Paste the app password and press Connect. The card turns to Connected and two lists appear, Folders to migrate on the left and Where messages will go on the right.

Start the migration and leave the window open

Above the button you see the scale Gmail daily limit and a forecast such as Estimated time: about 21 days for 10 GB. The window rounds a partial day up. So for 10 GB it shows 21 where plain division gives 20. Click Start migration. On the progress screen one counter shows moved mail and another shows what was skipped because the mailbox had it before. Errors get a counter of their own, and a line such as Day 3 of about 21 tells you where you are. Once today's portion is used, the title changes to Paused: today's Gmail limit is reached. The screen names the hour when the run continues. After the last day the whole history is one click away, under Open migration log.

An Outlook to Gmail migration tool built around the PST file

Works on a PC that has no Outlook

A reader built into Email Migration Tool opens the .pst. Outlook can be missing from the PC, which is normal for a computer bought this year. The PST stays exactly as it was. Mail is extracted into a temporary folder a little at a time and removed after delivery. The disk needs around 256 MB of spare room, even when the PST is huge. If Outlook happens to be running, you get a notice that the file is in use by another program, with a Retry button.

Outlook folders turn into Gmail labels

Gmail has labels where Outlook has folders. Each folder of the PST arrives as a label, and a subfolder becomes a nested label. By default they all sit under Imported, inside a label named like the file. Old mail stays apart from your current inbox that way. The hint next to the setting reminds you that in Gmail this is a label, and it is worth reading in full before you tidy up. Prefer labels with the bare folder names? The checkbox Merge into the mailbox folders does that.

A stopped run continues from its log

Windows restarts for an update. The Wi-Fi drops. When you transfer Outlook emails to Gmail over a week or three, one of these will happen. After a restart the program offers Resume and asks for the app password again, since passwords are not stored. It knows where it stopped from a journal on disk, where it notes every delivered item. Before it delivers the next one, it checks the label for it. What is there stays untouched, and a second pass does not double your mail. A lost connection needs nothing from you. The program retries it up to 5 times, each attempt after a longer wait.

2016 mail sorts into 2016

Each message is filed in Gmail under the date it carries, not under the day you ran the import. On the test messages we sent to a live Gmail mailbox, the dates matched the source to the second. Read and unread state is kept as well, and a draft stays a draft. Search by year then finds old mail where you expect it.

Send only the folders and years you need

Each gigabyte you skip is roughly 48 hours you do not wait, because of the 500 MB cap. Under Period you choose All messages, Last 12 months or Choose dates. In the list Folders to migrate you tick the branches to send, and Select all and Clear all do the whole tree in one click. Two branches are off from the start, Deleted Items and Junk Email.

What leaves your PC, and where it goes

SoftOrbits receives one thing from the program, the license activation, with the key, the purchase e-mail and a hardware id. Your mail is on a different line. It travels from the PC to imap.gmail.com over an encrypted connection, and our machines are not on it. PST to Gmail is one of several pairs this software handles. The product page of Email Migration Tool for Gmail and Office 365 lists the others.

What usually sends an Outlook archive to Gmail

A moving box by the front door of a new house.

The Microsoft 365 subscription runs out

Renewal is due next month and you have decided not to pay. Desktop Outlook came with that subscription. Save everything to a .pst while the app still opens. That file is all you will need later.

A single suitcase arriving on an airport baggage belt.

The new laptop came without Outlook

The old PC had Outlook 2016 and a 9 GB archive, and the new one has a browser and nothing that reads this format. Bring the PST across on a flash drive.

A mailbox being unscrewed from a fence post while letters wait in a crate.

Your provider is closing the mailbox

You changed internet company, and the address that came with the old one is being shut down. Outlook pulled that mail down for years. The copy on your disk is now the only one, and a single drive failure would end it. In Gmail it stops depending on that one disk.

A phone on a shop counter showing an old envelope.

You want old mail on your phone

A booking confirmation from 2014. A warranty PDF. They are in a file on the desktop at home, and you are standing in a shop. Once it is all in Gmail, you pull them up on the phone right there.

People who transfer Outlook emails to Gmail this way

People leaving a job with a personal archive

You saved your personal mail before the work login was closed, and what you took home is one .pst on a USB stick. At home there is no Outlook license to read it with. Put it into your private Gmail and those years are readable again.

Freelancers who switched to Gmail in the browser

New mail has landed in Gmail for a year. Client threads from before that are still in Outlook's file, and you look in two places for each old quote. Put the past under one label and search once. Some clients insist on a Microsoft mailbox. For that direction there is a page on how to import PST to Microsoft 365.

Family helpers moving a parent off old Outlook

Mom's PC has an Outlook that stopped getting updates, and she wants her mail on a tablet. You save the PST once at her desk and leave the program open. If the file is big, come back in a week and look at the label. If Dad's older mail sits in MBOX files from a different mail program, the same tool can import MBOX to Gmail.

What the trial puts into Gmail, and what a license adds

The trial has no expiry date, and you can run it on every PST you have.

What you get	Trial	Licensed
How much of each folder goes to Gmail	The 25 newest	All
Labels, original dates, daily-cap counter	✓	✓
Finishing a mailbox the trial started	✗	Move the rest sends what is left
The 25 per folder stay in your account after the trial, and you will not get them twice once you activate. The license key is tied to this computer.	Download	Buy now From $ 24.99

Buy now

From $ 24.99

Download

The 25 per folder stay in your account after the trial, and you will not get them twice once you activate. The license key is tied to this computer.

Email Migration Tool for Gmail and Office 365 - Import PST, MBOX and EML

Price

from $ 24.99 / month

Version

3.3

File Size

67.7 Mb

Last updated on

14/08/26

Trial: the newest 25 messages per folder, for each PST file, with no expiry date

System Requirements

Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 (32/64 bit)
Intel i3, AMD Ryzen 5 or above
4 GB of RAM or above
NVIDIA® GeForce® series 8 and 8M, Intel® HD Graphics 2000, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 5600, AMD Radeon™ R600, Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330, Mobility FirePro™ series, Radeon™ R5 M230 or higher graphics card with up-to-date drivers
1280 × 768 screen resolution, 32-bit color
1 GB of free hard disk space or above

Frequently Asked Questions

How to merge emails from Outlook to Gmail?

Export them to a PST file and load that file into the Gmail mailbox. Email Migration Tool reads the PST on your Windows PC and writes its messages into Gmail over IMAP, the protocol ordinary mail apps use. It asks for a personal Gmail address and an app password. Left at the defaults, the old mail is kept apart under a label of its own. To blend it with what is there, tick Merge into the mailbox folders before you start. Run the trial first and look at what it put into Gmail, 25 messages per folder.

Can I import Outlook emails into Gmail?

Yes, you can import Outlook to Gmail once the mail is exported to a PST file. A PST stores a message as a set of fields, and the program builds the mail again from those fields. It reads the same in Gmail, but the result is a reconstruction and not a byte-for-byte twin of what was once sent. Follow-up flags, importance marks and categories are not read from the PST.

How to open PST file in Gmail?

You cannot open it there. Gmail shows messages that are inside the mailbox, and a PST is a file on your disk. Import it, and the content becomes ordinary Gmail conversations that you open under the Imported label in the left column. If you only want a look inside without moving anything, that is a job for Outlook, not for this program.

Can I transfer my Outlook account to Gmail?

The mail, yes. The account, no. An address at Outlook.com does not turn into a Gmail address. This program carries over neither contacts nor the calendar. What moves is the messages you export to a PST file. Until you close the old address, new mail keeps arriving there.

How do I redirect Outlook emails to my Gmail?

With forwarding, which is a setting of the old mailbox and not a function of this program. It passes on messages that arrive after you turn it on. Everything received before that day stays where it is. You can do both, forwarding for new mail and a PST upload for the years behind it.

How do I transfer Outlook folders to Gmail?

Keep them in one PST and let the program rebuild the tree as labels, since Gmail has nothing called a folder. A path such as Projects/2019 comes out as Imported/archive/Projects/2019 for a file named archive.pst. Outlook's service top level, Top of Outlook data file, is cut off.

How much can I upload to Gmail per day?

About 500 MB over IMAP. That number comes from Google's page on Gmail bandwidth limits. The page covers Workspace editions and says nothing about personal accounts, and the program applies 500 MB to them as well. It also says what happens above the limit: IMAP uploads for the account are stopped for a while, usually about an hour and at most 24 hours. Downloads have a separate, larger allowance of 2,500 MB a day.

Why are there fewer emails in Gmail than in my PST?

One cause sits in Gmail itself, which keeps one message per Message-ID. One email filed in two Outlook folders becomes one Gmail message with two labels. When a different message carries an ID that the mailbox holds, the program does not send it and lists it under Gmail already has a different message with the same ID. Or some folders were not ticked, or a date range was set. A message above Gmail's size limit does not go up, and the report names it.

Transfer Outlook Emails to Gmail Straight from the PST File