Finding and exporting your Gmail data

What it holds

Gmail mailboxes hold sent and received messages, attachments, labels and conversation history. Calendar entries and contacts are separate Workspace records; retained shared or former-employee accounts may add further history.

Where Gmail shows the size

1. Sign in to admin.google.com as a super admin, or an admin with Storage and Reports privileges.
2. Open Storage from the menu to see organisation-wide use; hovering over the chart splits Gmail, Drive and Photos.
3. For user-level numbers, open Reporting, User Reports, Accounts.
4. Download the report with all columns so Gmail storage used (MB) and account status are included.
5. Total the Gmail column and divide by 1,024 for GB. Keep suspended users in, since their mail is still stored. Figures can lag by a day.

Plan and admin role. Any Google Workspace edition. The Storage page needs the Storage privilege, the Accounts report the Reports privilege; super admins have both.

Exporting the full history

1. Use a super admin account at least 30 days old with 2-Step Verification. With more than 1,000 users, contact Google support first.
2. In the Admin console, open Data, Data import & export, Data export.
3. Set up a new export for all user data in the organisation and start it.
4. Expect around 72 hours and up to two weeks. The files arrive in a Google Cloud Storage bucket, split by service.
5. Copy the Gmail archives out promptly; Google deletes the export after 60 days.
6. For PST files or selected mailboxes, use Vault instead: search Gmail in a matter and export as mbox or PST.

Data export includes active, suspended, archived and former-employee accounts, but skips accounts created in the last 24 hours. Most editions must wait 30 days between full exports.

Vault is part of Business Plus, Enterprise, Frontline and Education editions, or available as an add-on. The exporter needs the matter, search and export privileges.

Vault exports come with CSV and XML metadata: message IDs, senders, recipients, dates and labels.

Google Takeout works one account at a time and archives expire after about a week, so it isn't practical for a whole company.

You don't need to run an export to talk to us, and there's no need to clean it first — removing personal data is part of our work.