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How to verify that an email from Gmail was actually sent

  • 11-01-2011 10:15pm
    #1
    FrankGrimes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,032 ✭✭✭


    I have a situation where a friend has had someone accuse them of ignoring instructions they gave them in an email. My friend is adamant the email was never sent (has checked the inbox and spam box in her work account, which the mail was supposedly sent to).

    The sender has forwarded (to my friend's Gmail account as both agreed to use that from there on just in case there was an issue with the work account). However, when I looked at it it didn't look right to me: the sender is not very technically literate and may not know what an email looks like when you forward it from your Sent Items box. What he sent on was just the text of the email with a sender name and date at the top - not even a time was included.

    I think it looks a little suspect and as it relates to a relatively serious matter, I want to figure out how you can really verify if an email was actually sent from Gmail at the time claimed: my friend would then ask the sender to forward in that format/with that details.

    When you forward a mail from your Sent Items in Gmail, the header looks like this:
    From: JoeBloggs@gmail.com
    Date: Sat, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:30 AM
    Subject: Re: Instructions
    To: Mary@gmail.com

    But if I wanted to make it look like I'd sent the mail, I could just recreate that layout. Is there a way to get the full header info of the mail with all the full (is it called IMAP?) routing details or other ways to verify that the mail really was sent on the date and time claimed?

    Thank for any pointers.


Comments

  • #2
    IrishB.ie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 383 ✭✭IrishB.ie


    What you need to do is get your friend to request that the sender forward the original email from their sent items. I suspect the reply might be 'Sorry but I've deleted the original"

    If they do this you will able to see the original header in there somewhere.

    Otherwise, if it was a work email, the Sys Admin should be able to check the logs on both email account to verify things.


  • #3
    Snowbat
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,065 ✭✭✭Snowbat


    See http://digitizor.com/2009/10/11/how-to-see-full-email-headers-in-gmail/
    This also works for items in Sent Mail but there are no Received: lines (they're added by SMTP servers relaying the email to the recipient).

    The IT folks in her work may be able to check the logs of their MX SMTP server and see if there were any incoming messages from Gmail around the time in question.


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