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GAM-team
got-your-back
Python2016–2025
GAM-team / got-your-back

got-your-back

Got Your Back (GYB) is a command line tool for backing up your Gmail messages to your computer using Gmail's API over HTTPS.

Command LineWeb DevelopmentNetworking
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
24Distinct people
32Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
3.1KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Got Your Back (GYB) is a command line tool for backing up your Gmail messages to your computer using Gmail's API over HTTPS.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

I have not tried Gmvault, but I have tried two other backup solutions. I recommend [GYB]: - I have successfully migrated a 10+ GB gmail account to another account. - There were…

Leftium used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 10:01:16 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year32 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2016-11-18 13:31:18 UTC to 2025-12-31 15:09:43 UTC.

02462016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20162017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC707
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303

What Hacker News says

4 sources
dazbradbury·Jun 28, 2019
Does anyone know if this will have any impact on Gmail backup tools such as: https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back Or the long term sustainability of such projects? I've found gmail's own data export tools to not work at all for any inbox of a considerable size (100gb+) - so third party tools are the only way to actually back up / migrate email data. Without such tooling, relying on Gmail would be a huge mistake for anything remotely important.
In Gmail’s API lockdown will kill some third-party app access, starting July 15
SpaethCo·Mar 18, 2019
You can be in control of your actual data pretty easily with gmail. One of the better options I’ve found for maintaining a local archive is the Got Your Back[0] script. It maintains an SQLite DB with all of the message tag associations, and stores all your emails in standard .msg format text files. If you want additional peace of mind, you can spend a few pennies and use restic[1] to do regular incremental backups of the archive to Backblaze B2 to add yet another storage location and version index. [0] https://github.com/jay0lee/got-your-back/wiki [1] https://restic.net
In Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015

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