Convert Email Evidence to PDF for Court & Discovery

Courts and discovery processes do not accept screenshots. An email produced as evidence needs to show it is complete and unaltered: full routing headers, exact timestamps, an integrity trail from the original file to the produced PDF. This converter is built around that standard.

Every output PDF carries the complete header block (From, To, CC, Date with original timezone, Message-ID), per-file page numbering, and each export ships with a CSV index recording a SHA-256 checksum of every source .eml — a tamper-evident chain from native file to paper.

How it works

  1. 1 · Preserve the nativesKeep the original .eml files unmodified. The converter reads them read-only and records each file's SHA-256 in the index — the checksum is computed before anything else happens.
  2. 2 · Convert the batchDrop the production set in. Review the per-file warnings in the CSV: encoding fallbacks, missing plain-text parts and truncation are flagged, never silenced.
  3. 3 · Produce with the indexExport the ZIP. Serve the per-email PDFs with index.csv alongside — the manifest shows opposing counsel and the court exactly what was converted, from what, with what integrity hashes.

Try it now — nothing leaves your browser

A production checklist that survives scrutiny

Complete header rendering: every produced PDF opens with the header table — sender, every To and CC recipient, exact date with the original timezone offset, and Message-ID — the fields courts use to authenticate an email. Page numbering per document ("Page 3 of 7") with the source filename in the footer keeps multi-document productions organised when printed or Bates-stamped later.

Integrity trail: SHA-256 checksums of the source files are computed in the browser before conversion and written to index.csv. Anyone can independently re-hash the natives and confirm the produced PDFs correspond, byte for byte, to the collected files.

Honest warnings: files with encoding problems or structural damage convert with the damage flagged in the CSV status column — silently "fixing" evidence is how productions get challenged.

Where this fits in the workflow

The output is designed to slot into existing practice: per-email PDFs for exhibit sets, the CSV for load-file-adjacent review, page numbers that survive printing. Custom Bates numbering and endorsement stamps are on the roadmap for the legal tier — the current output is designed to integrate with whatever stamping tool your firm already runs.

Preservation note: conversion here is a rendering step, not a collection step. Collect and preserve natives with your existing forensic tooling; use this to produce readable, checkable PDFs from them.

FAQ

Is the SHA-256 computed on the original file?

Yes — on the exact bytes you drop in, before parsing. The hash is per-source-file and lands in index.csv.

Does the PDF show the email's original timezone?

Yes. The Date header is rendered as it appears in the raw message, preserving the original UTC offset rather than normalising to UTC.

Do you support Bates numbering?

Not yet — custom stamping is planned for the legal tier. Current page numbers and footers are designed to coexist with external Bates tools.

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