TakeoutCustody

Who it's for

IT consultants and small-organization admins leaving Google Workspace; today they cope with Google Takeout downloads, rclone copies, manual spreadsheets, and ad-hoc test imports.

The problem

Time and legal/data-loss risk: Takeout exports can be incomplete or corrupt, service-specific imports fail silently, and there is no signed proof that mail, calendar, contacts, and Drive data were fully handed over.

How to build it

Local-first desktop or web app: user loads one or more Takeout archives, it hashes and parses them, flags gaps, and outputs a signed JSON/PDF report plus runnable import commands for Fastmail, Proton, and Nextcloud.

How it makes money

IT consultants and small organizations pay about $199 per migration report or $49/month for repeated client runs because it prevents lost-data disputes and provides signed handoff evidence; free Takeout/rclone cannot prove completeness or generate service-specific import guidance.

Why it doesn't exist yet

Incumbents skip it because Google has little incentive to certify exit completeness and migration vendors chase per-seat Microsoft-365 API contracts. The indie gap is a narrow self-serve Takeout verification and import-mapping layer that does not need Google admin API access.

First users

First users come from the HN 'Goodbye Google' discussion, r/degoogle and privacy newsletters, and small IT consultancies doing exit projects; offer free pilot custody reports for public testimonials.

Build size

1 person x 10 weeks; includes Takeout archive parsing, SHA-256 manifest, gap/re-export report, signed PDF/JSON output, and import scripts for Fastmail, Proton, and Nextcloud; excludes automated OAuth migration, PST conversion, legal advice, and non-Google sources.

Biggest risk

Google ships an official Takeout completeness manifest, or Fastmail/Proton natively ships verified Takeout import with custody reports, making a third-party verification layer redundant.

Conditions for a hit (all 3 required)

• Accepts one or more Google Takeout archives and outputs a SHA-256 manifest plus per-service item counts for Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, and Drive within 30 minutes for a 20 GB test bundle.
• Produces a signed JSON/PDF custody report listing archive hashes, detected services, missing or corrupt files, and a re-export checklist within 4 hours of loading the archives.
• Generates runnable import commands or scripts for at least Fastmail, Proton, and Nextcloud for every detected service, including pass/warn statuses for known import limits such as Gmail label mapping.

How it's judged (in 6 months)

GitHub repo reaches 1,000 stars or Product Hunt daily top 5.(judgment date 2027-03-29)

AI self-confidence 45/100 — self-reported likelihood of meeting the criterion, not a business success rate