Emergency! Email Question

[killz]

Last year I permanently deleted some emails from my gmail account. I want to know if its possible to retrieve them somehow. Its VITALLY important for legal reasons.

[tanstaafl]

If you permanently deleted them that should have physically deleted them (can't undo that). If you just "deleted" them they're normally hidden from view and marked as deleted. They'd be recoverable as long as you didn't compact the folder. However I suspect the folder has been automatically compacted several times, given that they were deleted so long ago. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Undelete_a_message

If its a POP account is it configured to leave a copy of the original message on the server (look in the server settings to check)?
If its a IMAP account what is "when I delete a message" set to? Is "cleanup (expunge) inbox on exit" checked?

Do you have a backup of your profile somewhere?

Any chance of contacting either the sender or another recipient of those messages to see if they still have a copy?

According to https://support.google.com/mail/answer/ ... ktop&hl=en after 30 days you can't recover a deleted message from gmail webmail. However, its possible that even though they state you only have 30 days, they might still be recoverable. See http://mashtips.com/recover-deleted-gmail/ .

Your best bet might be to have your lawyer contact google to see if they can recover a copy. They have so many users I suspect they have a process to handle civil subpoena's for supposedly deleted messages etc.

[killz]

tanstaafl, jow can I contact google directly about this issue? Is there a special number or email?

[tanstaafl]

I don't know . I suggest you start with https://www.google.com/contact/ and then search the official gmail help forum at https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/gmail . I'd start by searching using the word legal. I suggest you try to find out what other people in your situation have done.

https://support.google.com/faqs/answer/6151275 (Serving Civil Subpoenas or Other Civil Requests on Google)
https://productforums.google.com/forum/ ... discussion