Technology |  4 Minutes Reading

How to Find Video Attachment in Gmail? A Comprehensive Guide

Gmail is one of the trusted emailing platforms, especially used for personal use. Being the most popular platform, it frequently gets misused by fraudsters. They sneak in malicious content in the form of links and other types of attachments, especially video attachments. From a forensics PoV, it’s important to know how to find video attachments in Gmail to identify clues residing in the video file. The information may be crucial for the case. 

Why Forensic Investigators Search for Video Attachments in Gmail?

For multiple reasons related to the investigation, forensic professionals may want to dig into the video files in Gmail. Some of the reasons are as follows.

1. Collecting Evidence: Video files could contain crucial information related to the case. That’s why they search for these attachments to gather information about recorded incidents, statements, or activities that could be relevant to the case.
2. Investigating Child Exploitation Case: There might be a chance that video files get involved in illegal activities such as child exploitation. To find out relevant evidence investigators search for video attachments in Gmail.
3. Examining Intellectual Property Theft Case: Sometimes during email forensics investigation, experts may encounter a case involving corporate espionage or intellectual property theft. In such cases, video files may contain important information such as proprietary information, trade secrets, or confidential business data which may lead them to the origin and flow of sensitive information.
4. Doing Malware Analysis: If forensic analysts are involved in analyzing Gmail emails, then they will not ignore analyzing video attachments.
5. Authenticating Digital Evidence: While investigating a case, properties of video attachments such as timestamps, metadata, etc. can help experts establish the timeline and reality of events.

Does Google Provide an In-house Method to Find Video Attachment in Gmail?

Well, Gmail has a search bar option, however, it doesn’t directly support searching certain file types such as video attachments. 

Anyway, you can apply the general procedure for searching attachments using the search bar. By following this you can locate the emails with video attachments. The steps go like this.

1. Go to Gmail, enter the correct credentials, and log into your account.
2. Click on the search bar at the top and type ‘has:attachment’. It’ll show you all the emails with attachments.
3. To refine your search further, type ‘has:attachment filename:mp4 OR filename:mov OR filename:avi’. You can replace the file extensions with specific video file types to find video attachment in Gmail.
4. Browse the result and search for the email you’re looking for.
5. Once you find the desired result, you can download them.

This method will work but may take ages to find the video attachment you were looking for among a large number of emails. A question might have crossed your mind i.e. is there a direct solution for finding the video attachments? Let’s find out!

How to Find Video Attachment in Gmail Directly?

The straightforward and concise answer is to use a professional tool such as MailXaminer. This tool can analyze any email client including Gmail. As far as Google data is concerned it can execute Google Takeout Forenics with ease.

Anyway, coming to the video attachments, then yes, by following a few steps you can easily find them in one place.

Step 1. Install the professional tool on your desktop and open it. (click on the below link to purchase the tool)

Purchase Tool

Step 2. Create a case by filling in the necessary details.

Step 3. Click on Add Evidence to add the Gmail data.

Step 4. Click on the Cloud option and select Gmail to find video attachment in Gmail.

Step 5. Apply the settings as per your need.

Step 6. Once the Gmail data is available on the dashboard, you’ll see the custodian panel at the bottom of the screen.

Step 7. Select the media option and click on the Video Checkbox to search for videos in Gmail at once.

Step 8. Once you’re satisfied with the search results, you can export them in the desired file format.

Conclusion

During an investigation of Gmail, investigators have to go through all elements including video files to not miss out on any important evidence. Since Gmail doesn’t provide an in-built solution, they are left with the thought of how to find video attachment in Gmail. Considering this, we explained a perfect solution through which anyone can search video attachments in Gmail.