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Accessing a deceased person's mail

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If an individual has passed away and you need access to the content of his or her mail, please fax or mail us the following information:

1. Your full name and contact information, including a verifiable email address.

2. The Gmail address of the individual who passed away.

3a. The full header from an email message that you have received at your verifiable email address, from the Gmail address in question. (To obtain the header from a message in Gmail, open the message, click the down arrow next to Reply, at the top-right of the message pane, and select 'Show original.' The full headers will appear in a new window. To obtain headers from other webmail or email providers, please refer to http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=22454#)

3b. The entire contents of the message.

4. Proof of death.

5. One of the following: a) if the decedent was 18 or older, please provide a proof of authority under local law that you are the lawful representative of the deceased or his or her estate or b) if the decedent was under the age of 18 and you are the parent of the individual, please provide a copy of the decedent’s birth certificate.

Postal Mail:

Google Inc.
Attention: Gmail User Support
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Fax: 650-644-0358

After we've received the above information, we'll need 30 days to process and validate the documents that you've provided. If you need access to the address sooner, in accordance with state and federal law, it is Google's policy to only provide information pursuant to a valid third party court order or other appropriate legal process. Please note that our ability to comply with these requests varies according to applicable law.

updated 11/3/2009

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