How to Upload Emails to EchoMe

Your sent emails are one of the best sources for training your voice. Here's exactly how to export them from Gmail and upload them to EchoMe — in under 3 minutes.

3 min read · Video walkthrough included

Why sent emails?

Your sent emails are full of your actual voice— the way you greet people, explain things, follow up, and close conversations. Unlike blog posts or social media, emails are unfiltered. They're how you actually communicate.

But there's a catch: don't just dump your entire inbox. You want your sentemails from the last 6 months — that's the sweet spot for capturing your current voice without overwhelming the system.

Step-by-step guide (Gmail)

Open your Sent folder

Go to Gmail and click on the Sent folder in the left sidebar. You only want emails you wrote, not ones sent to you.

Search for your sent emails

Use the search bar to filter. Click the search options dropdown and set:

From: your email address
Date within: 6 months
Search: Sent Mail

Tip: 6 months gives Echo enough signal to map your voice without picking up patterns from years ago that no longer represent you.

Create a label for download

Select all the emails from your search results, then create a new label — something like "For Download". This label is what Google Takeout will use to export just these emails instead of your entire mailbox.

Go to Google Takeout

Head to takeout.google.com. This is Google's official tool for exporting your data. Click "Deselect all" first — you don't want to download everything.

Select only your labeled emails

Scroll down to Mail, check the box, then click "All Mail data included" and change it to only include your "For Download" label. This keeps the export small and focused.

Tip: This is the step most people miss. If you skip filtering by label, you'll get a massive file with every email you've ever received — which is not what Echo needs.

Export and download

Click "Next step", choose "Send download link via email", select .zip format, and hit "Create export". Google will email you when it's ready (usually within a few minutes).

Download and unzip

Open the email from Google Takeout and click the download button. Save the .zip file to your computer, then unzip it. Inside the extracted folder, look for a file ending in .mbox — that's what you'll upload to EchoMe.

Tip: The .mbox file is usually inside a "Mail" folder within the extracted zip. It may be named after your label (e.g. "For Download.mbox").

Upload to EchoMe

Go to Your Voice in EchoMe, click Email, and select the .mbox file you extracted. EchoMe will parse your emails and start processing them.

Wait for processing

The upload takes a minute or two depending on how many emails you have. You might see a brief "0 emails imported" message while it's processing — don't worry, just wait for it to finish.

Confirm your upload

Once done, you'll see your email batches in the Recent Activity section. Check your voice strength — it should have jumped up with all that new content.

Common mistakes to avoid

Uploading your entire mailbox: Export only your Sent folder, filtered to the last 6 months. Huge files will time out or include other people's writing.
Forgetting to filter by label in Takeout: If you don't select your specific label, Google exports everything. Use the label filter.
Uploading inbox emails: Echo learns from your writing. Inbox emails are written by other people — that's their voice, not yours.
Panicking at "0 emails imported": This message appears briefly during processing. Give it a minute.

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