Export your organization's data

Super Administrators can export their organization’s users’ data to a Google Cloud archive. Most Google Workspace data can be exported. For details, go to Data included in your export. However, deleted user data is unavailable for export, unless the data was subject to Google Vault retention policies.

If you prefer that your users download their own data, refer them to Download your data. Make sure Google Takeout is turned on.

Requirements

To export your organization’s data, you must:

• Have held an account in your domain for a period of 30 days or more, if your domain was created more than 30 days ago.
• Be a super administrator of your Google services domain.
• Have 2-Step Verification (2SV) turned on for your account (2SV enforcement isn't required). This is required only for the admin performing the export. Learn how to check if 2SV is turned on for your account.

  Tip: If you need to turn on 2SV, but don't want to turn it on for all users in your organizational unit, first create a child organizational unit. Then move your account there and turn on 2SV.

• Have no more than 1,000 users on your Google Account. If you have more than 1,000 users, contact Google Cloud Support to temporarily enable the Data Export tool.

Before you begin

• The Data Export tool doesn't export data for any user accounts that were created within 24 hours before the tool starts exporting data.
• If your organization has more than 1 super admin, all admins receive an email that a data export is pending, and the tool starts exporting data 48 hours after you start the export process. This waiting period helps provide security for your organization's data.
• If your organization has only 1 super admin, an export notification email isn't sent.
• If your Google Account loses super admin privileges while an export you started is running, the export will be automatically canceled. No data will be exported. Other super admins will receive an email notification that the export was unsuccessful.

 Export your users' data

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. From the Admin console Home page, click Openand under Tools, click Data Export.
3. Click Start export.

Data export typically takes 72 hours but can take up to 14 days, depending on the size of your data export. You'll get an email to notify you when the process is complete. 

Also, the Data Export page in your Admin console will show one of the following status indicators for the export archive:

• Failed—No data was exported
• Complete with errors—Some data is missing from the archive
• Complete—All data was exported

Retry errors in an export

If any data is missing from the export, it will be listed in your export report as an error. Also, the Data Export page in your Admin console will show the status indicator Complete with errors for the export.

Note: If you retry errors, the Data Export tool starts another export process to export only the missing data.

To retry errors

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. From the Admin console Home page, click Openand under Tools, click Data Export.
3. Click Start remediation.

You'll get an email to notify you when the remediation process is complete.

A new archive with the remediated data is created. If there are still export errors (missing data) after the remediation process, follow the steps above to retry the export. You can continue remediating archives until you export all of the data.

For help obtaining files that weren't exported, contact Google Workspace support. They’ll reset the export time limit, so you can start another full export without waiting 30 days.

What's included in a remediated archive

A remediated archive can include:

• Data that was missing because a temporary error occurred—for example, an image wasn't included in a document during export processing
• Data a user lost access to between an admin's export attempts—for example, because their license was downgraded

A remediated archive doesn't include:

• Data that was missing because of a permanent failure—for example, the user deleted or changed ownership of a document before the export process started or between export attempts.
• Data that was previously exported, with the following exception: If an item was partially exported—for example, a document that was missing an image or comment—the Data Export tool attempts to export the entire item again.

View the exported data

1. In your confirmation email or in the Data Export tool, click Access archive.
2. In the archive in Google Cloud Storage, click the root folder to see a list of user folders. Each user folder contains a zip file of that user's data.
3. Click the zip file to download the user's data.
4. Unzip the file to see each user's data by product. The exported data is available for 30 days and then it's permanently deleted.

Click the zip file to download the data of a user, then unzip the file to see each user's data by service, such as Gmail, Drive, and so on. The exported data is available for 30 days and then it's permanently deleted.

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."

View the data export report

In the root folder of your data export archive, you'll find a report with that status of your export. You can open the report in a web browser.

If any export errors occurred, the report includes the following details:

• User/Service  ID—Username of a user account, group name, or ID of the service account for which there were export failures. Accounts are in alphabetical order.
• Account type—Can be one of the following:
  • User
  • Group
  • Customer-owned data—Files owned by your organization, not individual users.

    Note: The report shows some specific types of customer-owned data, such as shared drives. These are listed as "Resource."

  • Service account—Account that was automatically created for data without an owner, such as Google Jamboard content.
• Archive—Links to archive files with the content owned by the user or service account.
• Failure summary—The number of files that were exported and the number that failed to export. To see a list of files that weren't exported, click the arrow to the left of the failure summary.

Example report with export errors

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