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I'm leaving an institution I've been working for. I received notice that my institutional email account will be shut down in some months. That is just Gmail hidden behind a non-Gmail address, i.e. [email protected].

In that account I have important mail that could eventually serve as proof I did nothing wrong, speaking plainly.

Once my account is shut down, how do I preserve the legal value of its email? I'm afraid that backing them up in local storage won't do, as in litigation it could be claimed a forgery.

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  • An email on a server is just bits and bytes, and many jurisdictions consider that less reliable than ink on paper. To make the email evidence, someone would have to look at the metadata on the server and testify how mail and metadata were retrieved. This gets more complicated if the organization is just contracting with gmail to provide a mail server. So if the mail is really important, consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction.
    – o.m.
    Nov 12, 2022 at 19:19

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Once my account is shut down, how do I preserve the legal value of its email?

Shutting down does not necessarily imply deletion of messages. It is unclear what that means in your specific situation. But one suggestion is to create a backup (in local storage and/or forwarding the message) and also make the institution a specific request for preservation of evidence.

Your request should be made by email or having the institution sign a receipt copy. Otherwise you are giving the institution the opportunity to falsely deny that you asked that records be preserved.

I'm afraid that backing them up in local storage won't do, as in litigation it could be claimed a forgery.

The institution would have to prove its allegation of forgery, which will be more difficult to accomplish if it received the aforementioned request. During discovery --or its procedural equivalent-- you can require the institution to produce the records you asked it to be preserved. That will make it easier to corroborate authenticity of records unless the institution itself indulges in forgery.

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  • Would something actually require it to comply with my request and keep copies of such mail? As far as I know, they have a contract with Google and once I'm no longer an employee Google shuts down my account — which means I can't login and can't retrieve said mail anymore, and I doubt the company could.
    – LoremIpsum
    Nov 13, 2022 at 15:41
  • "Would something actually require it to comply with my request and keep copies of such mail?" The company is not automatically liable if it ignores your request. But if an investigation or a dispute ensues and you prove that the company ignored your request, the company could be in trouble. Its non-compliance supports a suspicion that the company destroyed or conceals something that disfavors it. In theory, this might even warrant entering a "finding of fact" --the one(s) you sought to prove by means of that evidence-- and/or other relief on grounds of the company's obstruction of justice.
    – Iñaki Viggers
    Nov 13, 2022 at 15:55

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