After you use Google Vault to search for the data you want, you can export a copy of that data and download it for further analysis. An export contains the following information:
- A comprehensive copy of the data that matched your search criteria
- The metadata you need to link the exported data to individual users in your organization
- The corroborating information required to prove that the exported data matches the data stored on Google’s servers
On this page
- Gmail exports
- Google Chat & Groups exports
- Google Drive exports
- Google Calendar exports
- Error reports
- Error report contents
Gmail exports
Expand section | Collapse all & go to top
Export contentsHow Chat messages are organized in an export file
To provide context for Chat messages, your search results, preview, and export files include messages sent in the same conversation or thread as the matching messages. Chat messages are organized in an export file as follows:
- Messages are grouped by conversation, thread, or Chat space.
- If your export includes messages from several conversations, the conversations are in reverse chronological order based on the most recent matching message. For example, if the last matching message in one conversation was sent at 1 PM, and the last matching message in another conversation was sent at 8 PM, messages from the conversation with the 8 PM message are listed first in the export file, then the messages from the conversation with the 1 PM message.
- Within each conversation or Chat space, messages are in chronological order.
Note: If you review your export in an email client, messages are in chronological order and aren’t grouped by conversation.
Reducing duplicate messages
When many messages in the same conversation or thread match your search, there can be overlap in the messages provided for context. To avoid exporting duplicate messages, Vault evaluates the overlap and groups messages accordingly.
For example, a conversation has 2 messages that match the search query, one sent at 9 AM on Monday and the other sent at 3 PM on Monday. The matching messages have the following context windows:
- 9 AM message: 9 PM Sunday to 9 PM Monday
- 3 PM message: 3 AM Monday to 3 AM Tuesday
The context windows overlap between 3 AM and 9 PM Monday. When the messages are exported, only one series of messages is returned for the conversation and it includes all messages sent between 9 PM Sunday and 3 AM Tuesday.
If another message in the conversation matches but was sent more than 24 hours after the previous matching message, then a second message grouping is created and returned in the export. Continuing the previous example, if another matching message was sent at 11 AM Thursday, its context window is from 11 PM Wednesday to 11 PM Thursday. This window doesn’t overlap with the previous window, which ended at 3 AM Tuesday, so the messages in this window are returned in a second group.
| File checksums | File checksums | A file that lists the message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files in the export. |
|---|
The metadata CSV file lists the following information for each message. The value is blank if the information isn't available or doesn't apply to a message.
DateReceived
|
The message received date (yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZZZZ). | Gmail only |
|---|
The count CSV file contains a list of the searched accounts and the number of messages in the export associated with each account.
The first row is for Totals
, which lists the total exported and error messages for all emails in the export. Results are sorted in descending order of the number of successfully exported messages for that email address.
Note about counting
If a message matches the export query but fails to convert to PST format, it's counted as a success in this file. You can review the messages that didn't convert in the export_name- conversion_errors- N .zip file.
Email
AccountStatus
If messages for the email account were successfully exported. Value can be the following:
-
Success–Vault retrieved all messages for export. -
PartialAccountError–Vault was unable to retrieve all the messages for export. -
AccountError–Vault was unable to retrieve any messages for export.
SuccessCount
MessageErrorCount
Google Chat & Groups exports
Expand section | Collapse all & go to top
Export contentsZip files of PST or mbox files. These files contain the contents and details of the exported messages. For Chat messages, these details include when the sender edited or deleted a message. The file names end with an increment to distinguish the files.
Learn about options for reviewing PST and mbox files .
You get multiple zip files in the following scenarios:
- The export includes messages from more than one account.
- The file size exceeds 1 GB for PST files or 10 GB for mbox.
To decrypt client-side encrypted messages in mbox files, use the decrypter utility (beta) . To view client-side encrypted emails in the PST format, import each user's p7m file into Microsoft Outlook.
A CSV file that lists the following information for each group member:
- Member's email addresses
- Email address of the group
- When the user became a member of the group
- Member's role–
MEMBERfor a group member,MANAGERfor a group manager, orOWNERfor a group owner - Type of account–
USERfor an individual user account orGROUPfor a group email address
export_name -metadata.xml
export_name -metadata.csv
- export_name -metadata.xml–An XML file that contains Groups or Chat message metadata as it exists on Google servers. Learn more
- export_name -metadata.csv–A CSV file that contains Gmail metadata as it exists on Google servers. Learn more
Note:PST file contents can’t be correlated with the XML file metadata.
error.csv
export_name –failed-group-membership-lookups.csv (Groups exports)
Error reports are included only if the export encounters errors.
- error.csv—Lists errors retrieving messages. Learn more
- export_name -failed-group-membership-lookups.csv—Lists group email addresses that were searched but not all members were returned
The metadata file contains the following information:
Metadata for Groups messages
-
#From—Email account of the sender -
#To—Email accounts of all recipients -
#CC—Email accounts of all Cc'd recipients -
#BCC—Email accounts of all Bcc'd recipients -
#Subject—Message subject -
#DateSent—Timestamp for when the message was sent -
#DateReceived—Timestamp for when the message was received
Metadata for Chat messages
-
#DateFirstMessageSent—Timestamp for when the first message in a conversation was sent -
#DateLastMessageSent—Timestamp for when the last message in a conversation was sent -
#DateFirstMessageReceived—Timestamp for when the first message in a conversation was received -
#DateLastMessageReceived—Timestamp for when the last message in a conversation was received -
RoomID–Space, group chat, or DM identifier that the message belongs to -
Participants–Email addresses of all users who participated in the conversation -
Labels—Labels applied by Chat, such as ^INBOX, ^TRASH, and ^DELETED. Also shows any labels applied to the message by the user. -
RoomName–The value depends on the type of message:- For Chat spaces, the name of the space
- For group conversations created after early December 2020,
Group chat - For group conversations created before early December 2020 and DMs, a comma-separated list of accounts that participated
-
ConversationType–The message type:- For a group chat created after early December 2020 or a space, the value is
Room - For a group chat created before December 2020, the value is
Group Direct Message - For a DM, the value is
1:1 Direct Message
- For a group chat created after early December 2020 or a space, the value is
Metadata for all messages (Groups and Chat)
-
FileName—Message identifier. Use this value to correlate metadata with the corresponding message in an email client or a text editor . -
FileSize—Size of the message in bytes -
Hash—MD5 hash of the message
Query parameters for the entire export
-
UserQuery—Query submitted by the Vault user that retrieved the messages included in this export -
TimeZone—Time zone used for date-based searches -
Custodians—Email addresses of the users whose accounts were searched. If you search for content rather than individual user accounts, no custodians are listed here.
The metadata CSV file lists the following information for groups' messages. The value is blank if the information isn't available or doesn't apply to a message.
DateReceived
|
The date the message was received in UTC (yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZZZZ). |
|---|
Google Drive exports
Expand section | Collapse all & go to top
Export contentsContains all the files and sites found by your search. Vault exports up to 10 GB of data in a single compressed file. If you export more than 10 GB of data, Vault creates multiple files.
Exported files are named with the original name of the file followed by an underscore ("_") and the Drive file ID.
Exported Google files are converted as follows:
- Google Docs to DOCX
- Google Sheets to XLSX
- Google Forms to ZIP (HTML and CSV)
- Google Slides to PPTX
- Google Drawings to PDF
- Google Sites to PDF. Each page in a site is saved as a separate PDF file that's named using the site-name _ page-name _ site-ID_page-ID .pdf format.
Note: When you export client-side encrypted files, the files remain encrypted, and the filenames end with .gcse
. To decrypt the files, use Google client-side decrypter
. When you decrypt a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides file, the file name ends with .gdoc
. The decrypter can’t convert these files to DOCX, XLSX, or PPTX yet.
Contains metadata, including:
- Document IDs ( Note: These IDs are not the Drive file IDs. They correspond to values in the CSV file.)
- User email addresses
- Created and modified dates for each file
- Document types and titles
Lists user accounts with their associated document IDs. Use this information to determine which users have access to the exported files.
This file is not included if you're exporting Gmail data and you enable the Export linked Drive filesoption. For details, go to Start an export .
error.csv
export_name -incomplete-accounts.csv
Error reports are included only if the export encounters errors.
- error.csv—Lists errors retrieving files and the file metadata. Learn more
- export_name -incomplete-accounts.csv—Lists accounts that were searched but not all matching files were exported
The metadata file included with your export captures the following metadata:
Included with each file
SlideRecording
|
Metadata about recordings (if exported item is a Slides presentation with associated recordings). For details, go to Use slides recording in Google Slides . |
|---|
Query parameters for the entire export
Custodians
|
The email addresses of the users whose accounts were searched. If you searched for content rather than individual user accounts, there are no custodians listed here. |
|---|
When you export files from Drive, the metadata file may include information about users in your organization who have indirect access to, and have opened a file that matches your search criteria.
A user can have indirect access when a file or folder containing a file is:
- Shared with a group the user belongs to
- Shared with the domain
- Shared publicly
During export , you can choose the information you want to include in the metadata output:
-
In the export dialog, check the box to have Vault determine the permission level for users in your domain who have indirect access to files. Each of these users is included in one of these categories when you open the metadata file:
-
Collaborators—Users who have indirect permission to edit or add comments to a file. -
Viewers—Users who have indirect permission to view a file. -
Others—In some circumstances, Vault can't determine the type of access a user has at the time of export. This can happen, for example, if a file was shared with a group, and the user was later removed from the group.
Vault takes time to determine what permissions these users have, so this option can increase the time it takes to prepare your files for download.
-
-
In the export dialog, leave the box unchecked (default) to exclude access-level information for users in your domain with indirect access to files. These users are listed as
Othersin the metadata file.
Google Voice exports
Expand section | Collapse all & go to top
Export contents| Information | File name | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Voice data files
|
export_name-N. zip | A zip file is generated for each account and contains PST or mbox files of text conversations, call logs, voicemail MP3 audio files, and voicemail transcriptions. |
|
File metadata
|
export_name -metadata.xml | An XML file is generated that contains metadata as it exists on Google servers. |
|
File checksums
|
File checksums | A checksum file is generated with message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files included in the export. |
|
Error report
|
error.csv |
Error reports are included only if the export encounters errors. Learn more |
Note:Unlike other services, Voice exports don’t include a count file.
The metadata file contains the following information:
Information about each file
-
DocID—A unique identifier for the file. -
#Author—The email address of the account that owns the file in Drive. -
#DateFirstMessageSent—For text conversations, the date the first message was sent. Note:This and the following 3 fields are identical in entries for voicemails and call logs. -
#DateLastMessageSent—For text conversations, the date the last message was sent. -
#DateFirstMessageReceived—For text conversations, the date the first message was received. -
#DateLastMessageReceived—For text conversations, the date the last message was received. -
ConversationType—The data type:-
TEXT_MESSAGE—A text message -
VOICEMAIL—A voicemail -
INCOMING_CALL—A call log of an incoming call -
OUTGOING_CALL—A call log of an outgoing call -
MISSED_CALL—A call log of an unanswered incoming call
-
-
ParticipantPhoneNumbers—The phone numbers of the participants -
OwnerPhoneNumbers—The value includes multiple phone numbers when the user's number changed -
Labels—Any labels on the conversation. For example, deleted conversations have the DELETED label -
ExternalFile FileName—The file identifier, which correlates to the Subject in the PST or mbox file
Query parameters for the entire export
-
UserQuery—The query submitted by the Vault admin -
TimeZone—The time zone of the query -
Custodians—The email addresses of the accounts that were searched
Google Calendar exports
Export contentsInternet Calendar Scheduling (ICS) or Personal Storage Table (PST) files with users' calendar events. One file is created for each user. For extremely large calendars, the export might be split into several files.
When you export client-side encrypted files, the export contains separate files:
- Non-encrypted events are in .ics or .pst files.
- Encrypted events are in .ics.gcse files.
To decrypt the files, use the Google client-side decrypter .
Export an event
- If the event is in a series, you can export only the full series. For details, go to Search & export an event series .
- If the event contains a hyperlink to a Drive file, the link is included in the export but the file itself is not.
Export a PST file
If the PST file doesn’t support an email address format, the address is replaced with the placeholder invalid_email@calendar.google.com
The file includes for each account:
-
AccountStatus—Indicates whether the export for this user was successful. It displaysSuccess,PartialAccountErrorif some events are missing for this user andAccountErrorif the export completely fails for the user. -
SuccessCount—Indicates how many events were exported. -
CalendarEventErrorCount—Indicates how many exported events had errors (but excludes events that failed to export).
The file lists the errors that occurred when retrieving events. The file is always part of the export, even when no errors occur.
For details, go to Error report contents for Calendar (later on this page).Error reports
When Vault is unable to export data from a service, Vault generates an error report. The report lists the items with export errors along with more details and metadata.
Vault reports two types of errors:
- Transient errors—A backend server was unable to retrieve the email message or file. The item should be available for export when you search for it later.
- Non-transient errors—Any error that's not explicitly labeled as transient is the result of an issue that cannot be corrected. Typically these errors occur when a message attachment or file was deleted, isn't supported for export, or can't be converted to the requested format.
To determine if the problem is transient or non-transient, open the CSV file with Google Sheets or another spreadsheet app and find the Error Descriptioncolumn. Note:Error descriptions aren't available for Voice exports.
Recover from transient errors
You can use message and file details to search for and export the data that wasn't exported due to transient errors:
- If the error report includes messages with transient errors, use each message’s RFC 822 identifier to find those specific messages when you search again. The format of the search term is rfc822msgid: identifier.
- If the error report includes Drive files with transient errors, use each file's title to find those specific files when you search again. The format of the search term is title:" title-of-file ".
Error report contents
Expand section | Collapse all & go to top
Error report contents for GmailSummary section
The error report contains the following data for the entire export in a Summary
section.
MessageProcessingError
|
The number of messages that Vault was unable to process because it couldn’t decode the message body. To recover these emails, contact support . |
|---|
Lists of errors
After the Summary
section, the export contains metadata for the accounts and messages that had errors. Values aren't reported if the data isn't available or applicable for a message.
MessageProcessingError
|
A list of errors returned when the message body couldn’t be decoded by Vault. To recover these emails, contact support . |
|---|
The error report contains the following fields for each message. Fields are blank if the data isn't available or applicable for a message.
| Field |
Description |
|---|---|
Document ID
|
A unique identifier for the file |
Document type
|
The document type. Value is mail
. |
File type
|
The file type. Value is |
Attachments count
|
The number of attachments to the message |
Attachment names
|
The file names of the attachments |
Subject
|
The message subject |
Size
|
The message size |
From
|
The sender's email account |
To
|
The email accounts of all recipients |
Cc
|
The email accounts of all Cc'd recipients |
Sent time
|
The timestamp for when the message was sent |
Source account
|
The account that was included in the search query |
Error description
|
A description of the error |
RFC 822 Message-ID
|
A unique identifier for a message that's added by mail servers Example: |
The error report contains the following fields for each message. Fields are blank if the data isn't available or applicable for a message.
| Field |
Description |
|---|---|
Document ID
|
A unique identifier for the file |
Filename
|
The document type. Value is mail
. |
Conversation Type
|
The type of message. Value is |
space Name
|
The name of the space |
Error description
|
A description of the error |
The error report contains the following fields for each file. Fields are blank if the data isn't available or applicable for a file.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
Document ID
|
A unique identifier for the file |
Document type
|
Indicates the file type for Google files. Possible values are DOCUMENT
, SPREADSHEET
, PRESENTATION
, FORM
, DRAWING
, and SITES_PAGE
. |
File type
|
The file format, such as PDF or XLSX |
Title
|
The filename as assigned by the user |
Size
|
The size of the file |
Creator
|
The email address of the person who owns the file in Drive. For a shared drive file, it shows the shared drive name. |
Collaborators
|
The accounts and groups that have direct permission to edit the file or add comments. Also includes users with indirect access to the file if you chose this option during export. |
Viewers
|
The accounts and groups that have direct permission to view the file. Also includes users with indirect access to the file if you chose this option during export. |
Others
|
The accounts from your query that have indirect access to the file if you opted to exclude access level information during export. May also include users for whom Vault couldn't determine permission levels at the time of export. |
Creation time
|
The date a Google file was created in Drive. For non-Google files, this indicates when the file was uploaded to Drive. |
Last modified time
|
The date the file was last modified |
Error description
|
A description of the error |
Drive Document ID
|
A unique identifier for a file in Drive |
The error report lists accounts that were searched but not all matching files were exported.
Failed Conversation Count
|
The number of conversations that weren’t exported. If the number is unknown, the value is Unknown Failure Count
. |
|---|
Summary section
The error report contains the following data for the entire export in a Summary
section.
PSTConversionErrorsCount
|
The number of events that weren’t converted to a PST file |
|---|
Lists of errors
After the Summary
section, the export contains metadata for the accounts and events that had errors. Values aren't reported if the data isn't available or applicable for an event.
PSTConversionErrorsCount
|
For PST-formatted exports, a list of events that couldn't be converted to a PST file. These events are available in their original ICS format in the export_name-conversion-errors-N
.zip file included in the export. |
|---|
Google, Google Workspace, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. All other company and product names are trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.
