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.
- Before you begin
- Step 1: Export your users’ data
- Step 2: View and download exported data
- Cancel a continuous export
Before you begin
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.
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 continuous exports | ✔ | ||
| Export to your own Cloud Storage bucket (local data storage) | ✔ | ||
| Number of simultaneous exports | 2 | 2 |
1 full export and 1 single-user export OR 2 single-user exports |
| Minimum time interval between full data exports | None | None | 30 days |
Important: Continuous exports and exports using local data storage include data only from users with the Assured Controls add-on license assigned.
Super administrators can use filters in the Data Export tool to export data from specific organizational units, groups, or users.
Note: (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.
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
To export data for the entire organization including the content of shared drives, see Export all your organization's data.
The Data Export tool enables you to specify a Cloud Storage bucket that you own as the destination for your exported data, enabling you to take advantage of local data storage. If you don't specify a destination bucket, the tool provides a temporary Google-provided Cloud Storage bucket.
If you choose a Google-provided bucket, the exported data is deleted automatically 60 days from the beginning of the export; see Export all your organization's data. You can choose whether to use a bucket located in the United States, Europe, or whether you have No preference.
If you choose your own Cloud Storage bucket, the export includes supported data for users with the Assured Controls license. The exported data is located in the locale of the bucket and is fully controlled by you. Additional charges for Google Cloud Storage may apply.
To use your own Cloud Storage bucket, you must create the bucket in the desired location and assign these roles to the service account shown in the Destination box:
-
Storage Legacy Bucket Reader Storage Object CreatorStorage Object Viewer
Note: Storage Legacy Bucket Reader is a predefined legacy role. To assign it, you may need to click Manage Roles and create a custom role that uses this legacy role.
Alternatively, you can also grant these access permissions to the service account:
storage.buckets.getstorage.objects.createstorage.objects.get
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.
Important: Continuous exports include data only from users with the Assured Controls license.
Step 1: Export your users' data
You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task.
-
Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
-
In the Admin console, go to Menu
Data
Data import & 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. See 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.
- Identify the organizational units, groups, or user names to export.
Click in the Add box > make your selection > click Done.
When you select an organizational unit, only the direct members of the selected organizational unit are exported— not the sub organizational units. For example, a Finance organizational unit has two sub 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.
- (Optional) Set up continuous export.
In the Continuous export box, 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; see Destination for the exported data for more information.
To use a temporary Google-provided Cloud Storage bucket, select Google-provided Cloud bucket and choose the locale 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. - Click Start export.
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.
Step 2: View and download exported data
From the Data export table, you can open a detailed view that allows you to:
- Review the scope of the export
- Check on the status of the export
- View the archive
- Run a remediation if there is an export failure
-
Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
-
In the Admin console, go to Menu
- In the Data export table, click the name of the export.
The detail view opens. - Under Scope, you can see which group or organizational unit was exported.
- Under Status, you can see if the export ran properly or if there were any problems:
- Failed—No data was exported
- Errors—Some data is missing from the archive
- Complete—All data was exported
- To view the archive, click Actions
- To run a remediation, click Actions
Note: Remediation (retrying export errors) is not available for continuous exports. The Data Export tool will retry the export during the next scheduled run.
When you're ready to view and download exported data:
- To run a remediation, click the root folder in the Cloud Storage bucket. The root folder contains a list of user folders. Each user folder contains a zip file of that user's data.
Notes: 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. Learn more
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.
Edit a continuous export
The Data Export tool labels archives created with automated continuous exports with a Continuous tag. To stop or pause future exports, select Turn off continuous export from the Actions drop-down for that archive. The label changes to Turned off. When you are ready to resume the continuous exports, select Turn on continuous export.
To change which data is included in future exports or provide a different destination, select Edit export from the Actions drop-down. Make the desired changes on the Edit export page then click Update export. Future exports will use the new settings.
