GHunt, an OSINT Tool for Investigating Google Accounts Using Email Addresses

GHunt is a modular OSINT tool for extracting information from any Google account using an email address, and it is designed to evolve over time.

It currently includes modules for email, documents, YouTube, and Gaia.

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What can GHunt find?

Email module:

• Owner’s name
• ID
• Last time the profile was edited
• Profile picture (+ detect custom image)
• Whether the account is a Hangouts Bot
• Activated Google services (YouTube, Photos, Maps, News360, Hangouts, etc.)
• Possible YouTube channel
• Possible other usernames
• Google Maps reviews (M)
• Possible physical location (M)
• Google Calendar events (C)
• Organizations (work and education) (A)
• Contact email addresses (A)
• Contact phone numbers (A)
• Addresses (A)
• Public photos (P)
• Phone models (P)
• Phone firmware versions (P)
• Installed applications (P)

Documents module:

• Owner’s name
• Owner’s Gaia ID
• Owner’s profile picture (+ detect custom image)
• Creation date
• Last time the document was edited
• Public permissions
• Your permissions

YouTube module:

• Owner’s Gaia ID (via Wayback Machine)
• Detect if email address is visible
• Country
• Description
• Total views
• Join date
• Featured links (social networks)
• All information accessible through the Gaia module

Gaia module:

• Owner’s name
• Profile picture (+ detect custom image)
• Possible YouTube channel
• Possible other usernames
• Google Maps reviews (M)
• Possible physical location (M)
• Organizations (work and education) (A)
• Contact email addresses (A)
• Contact phone numbers (A)
• Addresses (A)

Features marked with (P) require the target account to have the default setting Allow people you share content with to download your photos and videos enabled in Google Album Archive, or if the target has ever used Picasa linked to their Google account. More information here.

Those marked with (M) require the target’s Google Maps reviews to be public (they are public by default).

Those marked with (C) require the user to have Google Calendar set to public (by default it is private).

Those marked with (A) require the user to have the additional information configured in their profile with the privacy option set to «Anyone»; otherwise, the information will not be displayed.

Installation

Manual Installation

Make sure you have Python 3.7+ installed.

Some Python modules are required, listed in requirements.txt and will be installed in the next step.

1. Chromedriver and Google Chrome

This project uses Selenium and automatically downloads the correct driver for your version of Chrome. (⚠️ So make sure you have Google Chrome installed.)

2. Cloning

Open your terminal and run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/mxrch/ghunt
cd ghunt

3. Requirements

Inside the GHunt folder, run the following command:

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Adjust the command for your operating system if necessary.

Docker

The Docker image is built automatically and pushed to DockerHub after every push to this repository.

You can pull the Docker image with

docker pull ghcr.io/mxrch/ghunt

You can then use docker_check_and_gen.sh and docker_hunt.sh to invoke GHunt via Docker, or use these commands:

docker run -v ghunt-resources:/usr/src/app/resources -ti ghcr.io/mxrch/ghunt check_and_gen.py
docker run -v ghunt-resources:/usr/src/app/resources -ti ghcr.io/mxrch/ghunt ghunt.py

Usage

On the first run and periodically afterward, you will need to verify the validity of your cookies.

To do so, run check_and_gen.py.

If you have no stored cookies (e.g., first launch), you will be prompted to provide the necessary cookies. If they are valid, it will generate the authentication token along with Google Docs and Hangouts tokens.

You can then run the tool as follows:

python3 ghunt.py email [email protected]

python3 ghunt.py doc https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms

What GHunt Can Actually Find

Given just an email address, GHunt can pull associated Google account information including the account owner’s name, profile picture, Gaia ID (Google’s internal identifier), and metadata about when the profile was last edited. Through its modules, it can also surface linked YouTube channels, Google Maps reviews, Google Drive documents shared publicly, and calendar events with public visibility settings.

In practice, the amount of information varies significantly by person. Someone who’s privacy-conscious and uses default Google settings will expose very little. Someone who’s used their Google account publicly across platforms for years can expose quite a bit more than they’d expect.

The Privacy Implications — For You

Tools like GHunt are useful for understanding your own exposure. Running GHunt against your own email is a reasonable way to see what someone could find out about you with minimal effort. What it surfaces might surprise you.

The most common findings that catch people off guard: Google Maps reviews they’ve left publicly, YouTube comments, and calendar events that are public by default (many people don’t realize their calendars are visible).

To reduce your exposure: set your Google account visibility to private in account settings, review your Maps and YouTube activity, and audit which Google Calendar events are set to “public” versus “private.”

Legal and Ethical Context

GHunt uses publicly accessible Google APIs — it doesn’t bypass any authentication or access private data. Everything it finds is technically already visible, just not easily aggregated. Using it on your own accounts or during authorized security assessments is fine. Using it to investigate people without their consent is a different matter, and in many jurisdictions that crosses into illegal territory regardless of the information being “public.”

Frequently Asked Questions