Export data from Vault

After you identify and collect the data pertinent to your Google Workspace eDiscovery project with search, you can export it for further analysis. When you export data from Vault, the export contains copies of the data that matched your search. Your organization’s Google Workspace data isn’t modified or removed by the process.

Note: To search for and export data, your Google Workspace administrator must assign you Manage Matters, Manage Searches, and Manage Exports privileges.

Start an export

1. If you haven't already, sign in to https://vault.google.com, open the matter you want to export data from, and search for the data.
2. Click Export.
3. Enter a descriptive name for the export. Don't use special characters (~!$'(),;@:/?) in the name, they can prevent you from downloading exports.
4. If your organization has a data region policy, select the data region for the export. Learn more about Vault exports and data regions.
5. Set service-specific export options:
   • For Gmail, you can choose the following options:
     • Include or exclude the content of confidential mode messages. If you exclude confidential mode message content, your export includes only the message metadata.
     • Use the new Gmail export process. Note: The metadata file, error report, and count files are in a different format from classic exports. Learn more about the contents of new Gmail exports.
   • For messages, choose the format for message content files, PST or mbox. Learn more about these formats.
   • For items in Drive, choose to include access level information for accounts with indirect access in the metadata file.
6. Click Export. Vault immediately starts to process your export. You can close Vault and return later to check your export's status.

   Note: You can have no more than 20 exports in progress across your organization.

7. To review the status of an export, click Exports. When the export is complete, the Status column has a green checkmark and the Download button is enabled.
8. If your export takes more than 24 hours, Vault stops the export and delivers partial results. To get complete results, resume the export.
9. Download your exported data promptly. Export files are available for 15 days after you start the export, and then they're automatically deleted and you must recreate the export.

Exports with partial results

Large exports can take several hours to process. If a large export hasn’t completed after 24 hours, Vault stops the export and delivers partial results. You can then restart the export where it left off.

After an export has run for 24 hours, Vault stops the process and notes that the Export contains partial results. You can download the messages and items Vault was able to retrieve up to that point, along with a CSV file that lists the accounts that weren't exported.

Click Continue export to resume processing the export. Give the export a new name, and Vault gathers more messages and items for another 24 hours. You can continue an export as many times as necessary to retrieve all the messages and items that matched your query.