Can G Suite Admin Read My Email?
When I was recently working on a G Suite deployment project, customer asked me if its possible to watch users emails, So I did some research and testing to find if its really possible.
Author – Goldy Arora – G Suite Certified Consultant
So Can G Suite Admin Read My Email?
Google allows G Suite administrators to monitor and audit users emails. An Administrator may use Google Vault, Content Compliance rules, Audit API or Email delegation to view and audit users emails. It is recommend for G Suite Administrators to consider their local laws before performing email auditing on their users mailboxes.
Monitor Your Users Emails in G Suite via Content compliance Rule
In this video (or article below), i’ll show you how you can get bcc copy of your users/employees emails without knowing their G Suite password.
You should be a G Suite Administrator, and must be using G Suite Basic, Business, Government, Education or Enterprise edition as it does not work for G Suite Free.
Article Overview-:
- In this article you will see how being a G Suite Administrator you can get a copy of your users sent and received emails without knowing their passwords or putting forwarding in their mailboxes
- Note-: This option is primarily meant for auditing, you need to keep your country law and organizational policy in mind before attempting this method of getting access to your users emails.
- For any feedback or query, feel free to write me
Scenario -:
- For auditing purpose you would like to track incoming and/or outgoing (including intra-domain) emails of one or all of your Google Apps users, without asking or changing their password or putting a forwarding rule in their mailboxes
Solution Explanation-:
- To achieve this, you will create a server side rule in G Suite (formerly Google Apps) which you can apply on either one user, or an OU or even at all users
- This rule will state, that any message which contain @yourdomain.com in the message header, then send its copy to the id which you define
System Requirements-:
- This solution will only work with Basic, Business, Education and Government edition of G Suite (Google Apps), and not with free edition
Step 1 - Login to G Suite Control Panel
To achieve this, we need to login to our G Suite admin console, watch the video to see 3 possible ways to access admin console.
I assume you have administration permission to perform this task, if not, then you can watch this tutorial to see how to become G Suite Administrator or delegated administrator.
Note -: If you haven’t signed up for G Suite yet, you may consider using G Suite Promo Code to save 20%.
Step 2 - Navigate to APPS
Once you are logged into G Suite Control Panel, click on APPS icon from the Dashboard.
Step 3 - Go to Gmail
As we will be applying a server side to our Gmail application, which will get us bcc copy of all sent and received emails of our users
Click on the GMAIL icon as shown in the screenshot
Step 4 - Click on Advance Settings
The rule we want to apply is a part of Gmail advance settings, go ahead and click on it
Step 5 - Select Organization Unit
If you want to receive bcc copy of all the users in your domain, you can select the parent organization unit.
If you want to apply it on a specific function such as sales or accounting OR even only on a few users, you may create a new organizational unit and put required users in it, here are instructions by Google for it.
After selecting right orgnaizational unit, scroll down to find “Content Compliance” and click on “Configure” as shown in the screenshot below
Step 6 - Define Rule's Scope
Adding a description for your rule is recommended to ensure other administrators in your domain can refer to it and understand this rule’s objective in your absence
Select which emails you want to get as bcc for users, you can select any or all including inbound, outbound, internal sending or recieving, for the sake of this example, am only considering inbound and outbound, and not the intradoamin ones.
Step 7 - Define the expression
Lets define our condition, think of it like IF/Else statement-:
- Select “If any of the following match the message”
- Click on “Add” to add a condition statement
- Click on “Advance Content Match”
- Location should be “Full Headers”
- Match Type should be “Contain Text”
- Content should be “yourdomainanme.com” (you need to change yourdomainname.com to your actual domain name)
- Save your condition
Explanation -: In this step, we have created a condition (IF statement) stating if “@yourdomain.com” is found in the message header, then match the condition, now if your users either send or receive message through their corporate id, @yourdomain.com will surely be there in the headers, as its not possible to send/receive without it from/to their corporate id, however if your requirement is a bit complex, you may also use regex expressions to define your criteria.
Step 8 - Who should get bcc?
- Scroll down and click on “Add more recipients”
- Click on Advance
- Checkbox “Change Envelope Recipient”
- Select “replace envelope recipient”
- Enter the email id on which you would like to get bcc copy
- Scroll below and follow the next step in this article
Step 9 - Prepend subject (recommended)
In this step, we’ll define a way to separate these bcc emails from your regular ones, so you can easily identify them and filter/label them if required.
- Click on “Prepend subject”
- Add any thing you would like to prepend in the subject of these bcc emails, for example {{BCC}}
- Now all theses bcc copies that you’ll get will have {{BCC}} in front of the subject line, which will help you make filter in Gmail and put them under a label/folder.
- Save your changes
Step 10 - Done!
Congratulations, you will now get a bcc copy of your users in the mailbox you put in your condition as shown in above example)
feel free to put comments if you have any questions or feedback.
G Suite user email auditing FAQ
Here are details about some additional ways by which a G Suite admin can monitor and audit users emails. if you don’t find the answer, feel free to ask in the comments below.
G Suite Admin can not directly access users emails, however, Yes, he has following options to look at any users emails-:
(i) Google Vault (Read My Complete Google Vault Guide here) -:
G Suite has different plans, and one of them is called “G Suite for Business” which comes an application called “Google Vault“, which saves a copy of all users emails, on the record chat, group messages, files in Google Drive and Team Drive.
So even if a user deletes his/her email or a file in Google Drive, you can login to Google Vault as an Admin and search for users emails.
Please note -: above vault based solution to access your users email will not work with G Suite basic plan as Google does not vault with it, however it can be purchased additionally as shown in Google Vault Pricing guide here.
(ii) Email Delegation -:
G Suite offers an email delegation feature where you a user can delegate his or her gmail mailbox to someone (e.g a CXO delegating to executive assistant), this is usually done by a user, however G Suite Admin can also do it via Gmail API without even users noticing it.
Note-: Though G Suite Admins can setup email delegation behind the scenes, if you are a user you can go to your delegation settings (Gmail –> Settings –> Accounts –> Grant Access to your account) and check if their account is delegated to someone and can delete the delegation too.
(iii) G Suite Content Compliance Rule -:
G Suite Admin can also setup a rule in admin console to trigger a bcc copy of all (or required) users email as shown in the video tutorial above, and this solution works with all G Suite paid plans.
(iv) G Suite Admin Audit API -:
In case if your requirement is not fulfilled by above solutions, you may consider putting a custom solution based on your needs with G Suite Email Audit API. You also don’t need to start from scratch here, if you know a bit of Google Apps Script, you can use this OAuth 2 library to easily use Audit API within Apps Script.
NO, You can NOT login to any of your G Suite users account even if you have super administrator rights.
Only way to do that is to first reset user’s password and then use that password to login to user account, but user can easily figure that out as he / she won’t be able to login with the old password.
So if you are a G Suite Admin and really want to monitor your users emails, consider the solutions mentioned above.
I have been working with G Suite partners and all my employers use G Suite (formerly Google Apps) for email and collaboration.
I have this same question, and after asking a few of my employers and doing a bit of googling, I honestly don’t have a clear answer on it.
Some people say that when you work for a business, its assumed that you are using business assets and they retain the rights to look into anything if required.
Also, because am not a legal expert, I won’t really comment on this, but if you are a user, don’t hesitate to read your employment contract, look at your state and/or country laws, or even reach out to your employer (I did this) to ask it.
I have seen cases where due to legal investigation G Suite Admins put a legal hold on concerned user’s email box (in Google Vault), so regardless of all, if you are a G Suite user, my recommendation would be to use your Gmail assuming that your employer can access your emails.
RECOMMENDED READING
Reading through your delegation section, there’s a link that references Google’s API (it’s under your “(ii)” section). That link’s page says “Email Settings API (deprecated)”. Do you find this to be true? Is Delegation not possible anymore?
Secondly, I’m assuming that an API is the only way to setup Delegation — or has that changed and I (and admin) can delegate one user’s box to another–think Administrative Assistant to a VP?
Thanks for the help.
Yes, Email settings API has been deprecated, so you should now use Gmail API
https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/v1/reference/users/settings/delegates
I have updated the article with the new API.
thank you
Is there a way to just see what the user’s email password is? It seems a lot easier and I would like to be able to monitor one of my employee’s emails.
Thanks!
No, it is not possible for a G Suite Administrator to view users’ passwords.
Hi,
Thanks for the great article. I think it’s similar with catchall setting with additional recipients. However, is there any ways to make sure that another administrator doesn’t realize it when he/she looks into the Audit > email log search and check the delivery/recipient list?
No, logs are immutable and can’t be edited, if the other admin has the permission, he/she would be able to see it.
Hi Goldy
Could you please advise if I being a G suite admin , can I send an email from the user’s id , that is ,using user’s I’d
Please reply
Thanks
My assumption is that you want to do this without letting the user know?
if yes, It is possible, but not within the user interface, it’ll need you to impersonate that user using service account with domain wide delegation and using Gmail API.
Great article Goldy!
Is there any way to see if a gsuite admin as employed any of these tactics? (e.g., an audit trail or report)
Thanks!
You can not check it as a user, however you should be able to see it being a fellow G Suite admin if you have enough admin permissions.
Hi Goldy, Thanjs for your great article! We are 2 administrators in G-Suite and I would like to see past emails of one admin. There is no super admin. Will he be notified if I change the configurations like in your video to see emails?
My second question is:: If I change the password to the main domain (I own it and he has no access), will G-Suite still work? When we first installed G-Suite, I punched in my password to the main domain for setup. I don‘t know if G-Suite is somehow linked with the main domain and if I change my password of the main domain do you know if G-Suite will still work? Or will it inform the other admin that a new password has been set? Thank you so much for your help! 🙂
on your first question
I don’t think G Suite has this covered under system or custom alerts, so other admin won’t be notified, he can see it in the admin console if has permission that you have this rule in place.
Also, this would only give you bcc for the “now onwards” emails, not the past ones, for past ones, you have following options-:
1. Run Investigation from security center if you are on the G Suite enterprise plan.
2. Run Google Vault investigation if you are on the business plan.
3. Run Email Audit via Audit API if you are on G suite basic plan.
on your second question
I didn’t understand this question, but with main domain password, if you meant the first account that you created when signing up for G Suite (which automatically becomes G Suite super admin), then no, it won’t impact your G Suite as it is just like another G Suite account.
and that other person.
You other delegated admin would be notified of this only if he has a password changed alert in there.
Hi Goldy, Thanjs for your great article! We are 3 administrators in G-Suite and I would like to see past emails of one admin. Will he be notified if I change the configurations like in your video to see emails?
My second question is:: If I change the password to the main domain (I own it on domain.com and he has no access), will G-Suite still work? When we first installed G-Suite, I punched in my password to the main domain for setup. I don‘t know if G-Suite somehow goes through the main domain and if I change my password, G-Suite might not work anymore.
Hi Angie – I answered your questions in your comment above.
After trying this, my Sent folders on the accounts are now showing two copies of every email – I assume the original version and the BBC version. Did I miss something?
It seems you have applied the policy on yourself too, you should exclude yourself while making the policy.
I recently discovered that GSuite also allows Administrators to take a backup of the entire GSuite dataset for your organisation, including mailboxes for each user (referred to as data export). The mailboxes are in .mbox format and may be opened by an email client such as outlook or Thunderbird. At the time (Dec) it was not possible to exclude user mailboxes from the data export.
You are right Kevin, though it was possible in the past via Audit API where you run exports on mailboxes, and let it loop for the required users, however now, it is available within the G Suite admin console user interface.
Also, couple of notes-:
1. It is only available in the console if you have less than 1000 users, otherwise you would need to contact Google support to enable it.
2. This data export can be run after 30 days of your last export.
How could this be unclear? A G Suite admin can route all of their domain’s mail through any mail relay service. They don’t need to do any of the stuff in this yard-long article. They just need the relay, they will receive all emails for all accounts.
1. This article is yard long because it shows “how to” part of it, those who only need a summarize version of it do not need to keep scrolling, answer is in the first para.
2. Setting up relay server is not “just”, it also means more efforts and money than what is shown in this article-:
— more efforts –> you would need to setup your relay server which accepts messages sent from G Suite.
— more money –> to make it work, you would need to ensure your relay server is up and running 24*7, which means a lot of cost
So, i will not recommend going for relay server especially when you are using G Suite and all you need is to get a bcc copy of your user/s emails.
3. Communication is two way, simply looking at the answer does not make it right or wrong unless you have context of the question along with understanding of its audience.
Hi, Goldy. Thanks for the great article.
I am wondering if a admin can use API to get the employee mail. For example by using service.users().messages().list API.
Good question, G Suite admin can indeed get any user’s email by using a service account with domain wide delegation to impersonate the user.
If a super admin sets this up can other Admin see it?
It depends on that other admin’s privileges, so your delegated admin has required rights, then yes he/she can.
Hi, I followed the steps and it worked for one account but not the other. Is there a reason why it only worked for one user’s email account?
It indicates that your trigger has a condition which is applicable for only one email id, make sure it should be applied on (i) whole domain by putting @yourdomain.com in checking the headers and (ii) it should be applied on the tenant not on a dedicated Org unit.
Thanks for this Goldy.
If a user receives a confidential email accidentally sent to his inbox, can an admin delete the email from the user’s inbox?
Your welcome Dennis.
Yes, a G Suite admin can delete emails from users mailboxes in following ways-:
1. If you are on G Suite Enterprise SKU, you can search for objectionable emails from Admin Console –> Security Investigation as I show in the video here
https://youtu.be/dTDcwWo51ms
2. If you are on other (e.g G Suite basic or business sku), you can use Gmail API and impersonate users to delete emails from their accounts.
https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/v1/reference/users/messages/delete
Hope it helps.
Hi Goldy, I want to monitor my team’s inboxes. But I can’t find a way to do it. Can you please guide me through ?
Above video and instructions should be the way to do it, note that this functionality is not available in G Suite free edition.
Hi, thanks for the great tutorial. Sadly it didn’t work for me. I tried using paid GSuite basic.
I just don’t get any email to the inbox I’ve specified. Any ideas?
thanks again.
Well, Ideally it should work, not sure what you missed while setting it up, you may consider following the video again.
Hi Goldy,
what happens if your vacation responder is on. haha just did a test a noticed it popped up onto senders email lol
Thats hilarious:)
Hi
After setting this up, it seems that delivery of emails stopped happening or was taking longer than usual.
Any reason this would happen
It shouldn’t slow down the delivery (at least not at all to the noticeable level).
can’t say why email delivery is stopped unless have more information, but if follow this guide as shown, it should not impact email delivery other than sending bcc copy to concerned one/s.
if you get stuck, send me an email at help @goldyarora.com with the screencapture of your settings, and i’ll try to look at it.
Hi this did not seem to work…I have the GSuite basic plan. Any thoughts as to why it wouldn’t have worked? Thank you!
Assuming you have G Suite paid version, it should work, please tell me more about the issue.
Will the user know I’m doing the supervision of his email by some means?
No, User will not know that.
Will the user know he is under auditing after I setup the steps?
No, User will not know that.
Thanks for posting this. Do employees know if they are bccing another address if they check the sent info?
No, Employees will not know their emails are going as bcc to you.
Isn’t it illegal to read your employees/coworkers emails? Did you write a step-by-step blog about how to break the law?
Please watch/read the disclosure in the beginning of video and blog post.
Hi Goldy, thank you for the wonderful guide. I have a question, If I checked the encryption (onward delivery only) Require secure transport (TLS). I cant seem to receive the mail forward to my email. I’m testing it by sending from my yahoo email to my user gmail. Oh perhaps, i have to uncheck for the TLS?
Best Regards,
Victor
Your welcome Victor.
Be default Gmail attempts to deliver via TLS, but in absence of TLS (at recipient server), it delivers via smtp.
So Yes, if you choose TLS option, then Google will “enforce” TLS only delivery, if TLS is not available, then it’ll not deliver the message.
Hi Goldy. Does the ability to read emails only apply to those sent after you set this up? If so, is there a way to see past emails?
Hi Sandra, thats correct, you can see the emails after applying this rule, to see past emails you have following options-:
1. If you are on G Suite Business edition and have enabled Google Vault (Archiving and compliance solution which comes with G Suite business), you can then login to ediscovery.google.com and search for any user’s emails.
2. (Programmatically) If you are the administrator, you can create a script which would use domain wide delegation, so you can impersonate any user and and get their emails based on a few methods available in GmailApp class as mentioned here –> https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/gmail/