Why sent-only and not the whole inbox?

Your inbox is mostly other people writing to you — receipts, newsletters, colleagues' drafts, promotions. Your sent folder is you talking. For any AI that's supposed to sound like you, sent is where the signal is. Inbox is noise.

How do I export just my Gmail sent folder?

Google Takeout → Gmail → 'Include all data' unchecks → check only 'Sent'. Delivers an mbox file. Or use a tool that reads the sent label via a read-only Gmail API scope (gmail.readonly with label filter).

Is this the same as backing up all of Gmail?

No — a full Gmail backup with attachments and every label can be 50–500 GB for heavy users. Sent-only is usually a small fraction of that: a few gigabytes for a decade of sent mail.

What about my most sensitive sent emails?

Two protections: filter by domain before importing (skip work@company.com if you don't want work leaking in), and flag sensitive senders as private_mode so the content stays inside your vault and never appears in a persona export.

Does anyone actually read email as memory?

Long-form personal email is arguably the highest-quality writing most people produce — considered, addressed to a real person, with a clear voice register. Twenty years of sent mail is a better sample of how someone actually writes than any journal.

Can Konshus import Gmail sent folder?

Yes — /vault/import/gmail is gated on Google's verification of the sensitive OAuth scope (in progress). Meanwhile you can forward specific emails to your Vault Inbox ( @vault.konshus.ai) today on any tier.

A practical guide · ~7 min read

Import Your Gmail Sent Folder as AI Memory

Every question about "what data should an AI use to sound like me?" has the same answer nobody wants to hear: your email. Not your inbox — your sent folder. Twenty years of you writing considered paragraphs to real people, with a real voice, about things that mattered enough to hit send. Here's how to get it out, and why it's the only cut of email that actually helps.

Why sent-only is the right cut

Your inbox is a firehose of other people. Newsletters you skim, receipts you delete, colleagues sending you drafts, promotions you never open. Almost none of it is you. Importing your inbox into a memory tool would make it think you write like Delta Airlines.

Sent mail is different. You wrote it deliberately, to a specific person, in a real voice register — different from your Twitter, different from your Slack, closer to your Google Docs. Long-form personal email is arguably the highest-quality writing most people produce over their lives. And most of it is sitting in a folder nobody thinks about.

The Google Takeout flow

Go to takeout.google.com.
Click Deselect all at the top — otherwise you'll export your entire Google account.
Scroll to Mail and check it.
Click All Mail data included. In the label picker, uncheck Include all messages in Mail and check only Sent.
Choose delivery: email link or Google Drive.
Set frequency to Export once. Format: .zip.
Click Create export.

Sent-only exports usually arrive within an hour. Full-Gmail exports can take a day and be enormous (50–500 GB for heavy users). Sent-only is often a few GB.

What's inside

An mbox file — the same format Gmail's IMAP server serves. Every message is delimited, headers preserved (including To, From, Subject, Date, Message-ID). Attachments are inline as MIME parts. Any decent email parser reads mbox natively; if you want to skim it, tools like Thunderbird open mbox directly.

Never lose your AI again

Konshus is one way to solve this — a persistent memory vault and portable persona that follows you across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and whatever ships next.

Meet Konshus

The sensitivity conversation

Sent mail includes everything you've ever written — including things you'd rather not import. Two protections before you upload anywhere:

Filter by domain. If you don't want your work email leaking into a personal AI, exclude @company.com before importing. Most tools let you do this at upload time.
Flag sensitive recipients. Some threads (therapy, legal, medical, a specific ex) should stay in the vault but never surface in exports. A tool with a private-mode flag lets you mark those senders and keeps their content local to you.

The path in Konshus

Konshus is mid-verification with Google for the sensitive OAuth scope needed to read sent mail via API — that lands live at /vault/import/gmail/how-to when Google Trust & Safety greenlights it. Meanwhile, you can forward individual sent messages to your Vault Inbox address (<yourvaultid>@vault.konshus.ai) on any tier — message-by-message but shipping today.

Frequently asked

Frequently Asked Questions

Twenty years of your voice, addressed to real people

Konshus imports your Gmail sent folder as first-person voice signal — filtered by domain, protected by private_mode, distilled into memory your Konshus can quote.

Meet Konshus