Search in Gmail Account Database and Extract Required Evidence

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Published By Anurag Sharma
Anuraag Singh
Approved By Anuraag Singh
Published On November 14th, 2022
Reading Time 4 Minutes Reading
Category Forensics

In today’s world of digital communication, Gmail is used by almost everyone, for the personal as well as professional necessities. With its ever-increasing usage and popularity, Gmail has become one of the means for committing crimes via email scamming, email frauds, email phishing, and other cybercrimes. In such cases, the investigative operations face the biggest challenge when it comes to the traversal of millions of emails. During the investigation, while finding pieces of evidence in a bulk set of data, examiners often miss certain evidentiary artifacts unknowingly due to tiring operations. So, it is difficult to search email in Gmail with limited options.

An in-depth analysis and R & D by experts show that the investigators are looking for versatile solutions that may allow them to search in Gmail account database to extract the required evidence. As the basic search feature is already available in Gmail but the forensic investigators need to be acquainted with an all-in-one solution that must be versatile, robust, and user–friendly.

Advanced Solution to Search Mail in Gmail Account Database

Criminals involved in illicit practices often have a repository of millions of emails in the Gmail account. So searching for evidence among these emails requires certain strategical algorithms that may intelligently figure out the required artifacts. MailXaminer, an advanced email analysis tool is a perfect fit to investigate Gmail accounts, investigators can very easily reach up to the evidence intelligently and smartly.

Prerequisites for Investigating the Gmail Account Using the Advanced Software:

  • The IMAP and POP settings must be enabled within the Gmail.com account.
  • The Less Secure App Access feature of the Gmail should be enabled.
  • The 2 – Step verification of the Gmail account must be disabled.

Step-by-Step Procedure to Search in Gmail.com User Account

1. Enable IMAP and POP in Gmail: –

  • Login to your Gmail Account and click on the Gear button present at the right section and click on Settings.

Go to Settings to Search in Gmail

  • Now under the Settings screen, click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP and select the radio buttons for: – Enable POP for all mail and Enable IMAP. Then, click on Save Changes.

Enable POP & Save Changes

2. Enable Less Secure App Access and Disable 2 – Step Authentication: –

  • Scroll down to Signing in to Google section and turn-Off the 2-Step Verification.

Turn Off 2 Step

  • Now scroll down to the Connected Apps & Sites section and turn the Allow less secure apps: ON.

ON Less Secure Apps to Search Email in Gmail

3. Investigate and Search Email in Gmail with Email Analyzer: –

  • Launch the software and choose the Gmail option under the Cloud tab of the Add Evidence window.
  • Provide the required Username and Password of the Gmail account. If required, investigators can also make the use of the Date filter to search mail within a date range.

gmail-evidence

  • Now to search in Gmail account database, move to the Search section available in the software

search-types

  • Now to search mail inside the Gmail account, investigators can make use of robust search options available in the software such as General, Proximity, Regular Expression, Stem, Fuzzy, Wildcard searches. Various search algorithms are deployed in the tool that users can use to search in Gmail by entering any keyword.
  • The various search filters available in the software search mail in Gmail account have been displayed in the below software screen: –

search-filters

With the above mentioned search features of the tool, investigators can search and extract the suspected data within the Gmail accounts in a hassle free manner.

Conclusion

This Email Forensics Software is an all-in-one solution that fulfills all the requirements of forensics email examiners. It provides a variety of advanced functionalities by which the user can easily view and analyze email files by search in Gmail and extract the required evidence. Users can easily configure the Gmail account with the software for analysis and search evidences with its advanced searching algorithms. It is designed with a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to use and handle.

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By Anurag Sharma

Tech enthusiast & cyber expert for the past 5 years. Love to solve complicated scenarios to counter cyber crimes with in-depth technical knowledge.