Choose the Workspace data you want to export

Looking to export all data? Go to Export all your organization's data.

With the Data Export tool, you can export some or all of your organization’s data to a Google Cloud Storage archive and download it. Some organizations need to export only certain data, and not the entire dataset. For example, an organization may only need to export content generated by the sales department.

To let your users download their data, allow Google Takeout and refer users to How to download your Google data.

If your organization has FedRAMP Authorization or more than 1000 users, contact Google Workspace support before you use the Data Export tool. The Google Workspace support team does not access or process the data that is exported from the Data Export tool.

Before you begin

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Requirements

To export your organization’s data, you must:

Use a Google Workspace or Cloud Identity super administrator account that is at least 30 days old (unless you created your organizational account less than 30 days ago).
Have 2-Step Verification (2SV) turned on for your account. 2SV enforcement is required only for the admin who starts the export. To check if 2SV is turned on for your account, review your account's security settings.

To access exported data, you must have Google Cloud turned on for your admin account(s). For details, go to Turn Google Cloud on or off for users.

Export features by Google Workspace edition

Your Google Workspace edition determines which exporting features are available to you.

	Assured Controls, Assured Controls Plus	Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Education Plus	All other Google Workspace editions
Export all of your organization's data	✔	✔	✔
Run a filtered data export for a single user	✔	✔	✔
Run a filtered data export for an organizational unit, group, or up to 100 users	✔	✔
Run a filtered data export for a one or more Core Workspace services	✔
Run a filtered data export for a single Drive label	✔
Run a filtered data export for the last 7, 30, or 90 day timeframe	✔
Run continuous exports	✔
Export to your own Cloud Storage bucket (local data storage)	✔
Number of simultaneous exports	2	2	Choose either: One full export and one single-user export Two single-user exports
Minimum time interval between full data exports	None	None	30 days

What data is exported?

Super administrators can use filters in the Data Export tool to export data from specific organizational units, groups, or users. Data can also be filtered by service (for example, Gmail or Drive), a single Drive label, or limited to a given timeframe.

Note for Google Workspace for Education editions: When using the organizational unit or group filters in the Data Export tool, be sure to select the All users are 18 or older age label. For details, go to Control access to Google services by age.

The Data Export tool generally exports the same data that’s available with Google Takeout for users. For information about what data is exported for each service, see the list at Export all your organization's data.

The following data is not included in a filtered data export:

Organizational units and groups added within the previous 24 hours may not be exported.
Only data owned by users is exported.
Data isn't owned by a user, such as a document in a shared drive, it isn't exported. For example, if a user creates a spreadsheet and stores it in their My Drive, the user owns the spreadsheet. But if the user creates a spreadsheet and moves it to a shared drive, the user no longer owns the spreadsheet. The data will not be exported.
Features that are not owned by individual users include:
- Chat Spaces and group direct messages
- Sites
- Shared drives
- Secondary calendars
Shared drive data cannot be filtered by time range, and is exported as a complete batch.

To export data for the entire organization including the content of shared drives, see Export all your organization's data.

Where is exported data stored?

The Data Export tool exports your organization's data to a Google Cloud Storage (GCS) bucket. By default, the Data Export tool provides a temporary, Google-provided, Cloud Storage bucket.

If you have Google Workspace Assured Controls and Assured Controls Plus, you can specify a Cloud Storage bucket that you own to take advantage of local data storage. This feature gives you more control over your data's location and who can access it, addressing data sovereignty concerns.

If you choose a Google-provided bucket

You can choose a bucket located in the United States, Europe, or indicate you have No preference.
The exported data is automatically deleted 60 days from the beginning of the export.

Note on deletion: Because data is exported in packets rather than as a whole package, large exports may have many data packets over multiple days. This means some packets may be deleted before others. To determine when individual files will be deleted, subtract the number of days it took for the export to complete from 60. You must download the export before that date.

If you choose your own Cloud Storage bucket

To retain your data for longer than 60 days, you need to create a custom export and choose your own Cloud Storage bucket. See Export your Workspace data using local data storage for more information.

How long does it take to export data?

When you start an export, all super admins receive an email that a data export is pending. The export is available no earlier than 48 hours after you start the export. This waiting period helps provide security for your organization's data.

Data export typically takes 72 hours but can take up to 14 days, depending on the size of your data export. All super admins get a notification email when the process is complete. All super administrators can view the export.

Note: If your Google Account loses super admin privileges while an export you started is running, the export is automatically canceled. No data is exported and other super admins receive an email notification that the export was unsuccessful.

Setting up and managing continuous exports

Continuous exports only include data from users with the Assured Controls license.

You can schedule and automate continuous exports. The continuous export feature allows you to set up a specific admin takeout configuration and then run that export continuously. The Data Export tool automatically runs the export process continuously, starting a new export automatically five days after the previous export started. If the previous export is still in progress, the export will start once the previous export finishes, creating a new archive with each run.

The data export tool labels archives created with automated continuous exports with a Continuous tag.

Stop or pause continuous exports

To stop or pause future exports for an archive, open its Actions drop-down and choose Turn off continuous export. The label changes to Turned off.
When you are ready to resume continuous exports for the archive, select Turn on continuous export.

Edit a continuous export

To change which data is included in future exports or provide a different destination, open an archive’s Actions drop-down and choose Edit export. Make your changes then click Update export. Future exports will use the new settings.

Export your users' data

You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task.

Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.
Go to Menu Data > Data import & export > Data Export.
Click Set up new export.
In the Name box, enter a name for your export.
In the Scope box, select which users' data to export:
- To export all of your organization's data, including data that's available only to admins, select Export all user data and skip the next step. Go to Export all your organization's data for more information.
- To export the data for selected users, select Export data for specific users and choose whether to identify users by organizational unit, group, or individual user names
(Optional) Choose whether you want to export data from Groups, Organizational units, or User names. Then click the selection box and make or type your selection.
- When you select an organizational unit, only the direct members of the selected organizational unit are exported—not the child organizational units. For example, a Finance organizational unit has two child organizational units, Europe and Asia. If you select the Finance organizational unit, only the direct users under Finance are exported. The Europe and Asia organizational units are not exported.
In the Service box, select the services whose data you want to export.
(Optional) In the Labels box, you can choose to export data with a specific Google Drive label. Select the drive label you want from the drop down.
In the Date range & type box, choose a date range to export Google Drive, Gmail, and Chat data from a specific time range, or set up continuous exports. Learn more about Continuous exports
Note: Shared drive files cannot be filtered by time range.
(Optional) To set up Continuous export, select the check box.
Note: Only organizations with the Assured Controls add-on see the Continuous export box.
In the Destination box, choose where to save the exported data.
The Data Export tool can export the user data to a Google-provided Cloud Storage bucket or a Cloud Storage bucket that you own. Learn more about where exported data is stored
- To use a temporary Google-provided bucket, select Google-provided bucket and choose the region for the bucket: United States, Europe, or No preference.
  Note: The temporary Google-provided Cloud Storage bucket is not available for continuous exports.
- To choose your own Cloud Storage bucket, select Your bucket and enter the name of the bucket you created. Example: my-gws-data-export-bucket
Click Start export.
The estimated runtime is calculated, if available for your export. Once complete, the estimated completion time is displayed.

View and download exported data

Once your data export is complete, super admins in your organization will get an email notification with a link to view the archive. You can also access the archive using the Google Admin Console.

Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.
Go to Menu Data > Data import & export > Data Export.
The Data export table lists all of your data exports and includes:
- Export names
- Last start and completion dates
- Who each export was set up by
- Export status
- Actions you can take on the exported data
In the Data export table, click the name of the export to open a detailed view.
Under Scope, you can see which users, groups, or organizational units were exported.
Under Status, you can see if the export ran completely or if there were errors:
- Failed: No data was exported
- Errors: Some data is missing from the archive
- Complete: All data was exported
To view the archive, click ActionsView Archive.
If your data export completed with errors, you can run a remediation.

To view and download exported data:

In the Cloud Storage UI, click the root folder. The root folder contains a list of user folders. Each user folder contains a zip file of that user's data.
Note: Some data, such as files in shared drives, is owned by a service account rather than a user. In the export archive, service accounts are named "Resource."
Only individual objects can be downloaded using the Cloud Storage UI. To download a folder or multiple objects at a time, use the gsutil command line tool.
Example:

gsutil -m cp -r \

"gs://[gsutil URI for your takeout bucket]" \

.

Click the zip file to download the user's data.
Unzip the file to review the user's data by product.

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