4.1 jelly bean - Backup gmail emails offline

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?

Answer

You can use adb 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).