In a latest (and major) move towards data portability, Google is opening its Gmail and Calendar services to archives. Users of both of the services can now download a copy of their Gmail and Google Calendar data for offline access or moving them across to other platforms.
"Having access to your data and being able to take it with you is important, especially if that data contains precious memories like old love letters, your first job offer, or that 100-message thread discussing the merits of various cat videos," wrote Google software engineer Nick Piepmeier in a blog post.
Instead of downloading the entire Gmail and calendar data you can even filter with specific labels and opt to download individual calendars.
The downloaded Gmail messages archives are in MBOX format which is supported by all other popular email clients including Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple's Mail program. The extension of Google Calendar items are again in commonly-supported ICS iCalendar (.ics) format.
However, the step is not the first from Google towards data portability. The Internet giant has aleady been supporting downloadable archives for more than 15 products, which includes YouTube, Google+, Blogger, Drive, Contact, Hangouts and Location History.
You can start downloading your calendar items right away. However for downloading Gmail items, you might need to wait a little till the option gets rolled out over the next month.
