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How to Get Your Federal Court Filings For Free

How to enable DocketBird to receive filing emails from the Court, so that we can download them for free.

Written by Grey

To enable DocketBird to download your filings instantly, follow these instructions:

OPTION 1: AUTOMATIC (recommended)

  1. Log in to DocketBird.

  2. Navigate to "Court accounts". Once you are there, make sure you have added your PACER account to DocketBird. If you haven't done so, do that first.

  3. After your PACER account has been added to DocketBird, scroll to "PACER Email Setup", and click on your PACER username.

  4. Follow the instructions to configure your PACER account to automatically email filngs to DocketBird.

  5. If you haven't done so already, add your PACER account to DocketBird, by navigating to "Court accounts".

  6. This will ensure your filings are sent to DocketBird, enabling DocketBird to download them and forward them to you for free.

OPTION 2: MANUAL (not recommended)

  1. This is not the recommended path.

  2. Log in to your court account (for example, the Northern District of California PACER account)

  3. Click "Utilities" in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

  4. Click "Maintain Your Email,"" which should be underneath the "Your Account" options. If you do not see that option, then click on "Maintain Your Account" instead.

  5. Click "add new e-mail address." If you do not see that option, click on "Email information," and then click on "add new e-mail address."

  6. Enter your unique DocketBird email address. To find your unique DocketBird email address, log in to DocketBird and navigate to the "Court Accounts" menu option. Then, under the section "PACER Email Setup," find your username. The last line of the "DocketBird User(s)" column will have your unique DocketBird email address. It will look like xxxxxxxxx@filings.docketbird.com.

  7. On the Court website, make sure your settings look like this:
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  8. Click the "Submit all changes" button in the left column. If you do not see that option, click on the "Return to Person Information Screen" button instead, and then click "Submit." If you see a message saying "Case specific fields were not altered," just click "Submit" again.

  9. You should see a message saying that the update was successful.

  10. Important: Double-check your email notifications to ensure the DocketBird email address was added.

  11. Repeat the above steps for each court in which you have active cases.

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