Vault export contents

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

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How 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.

Information File name Description
Message contents export_name-N.zip

PST or mbox files with the contents and details of the exported messages. Learn about options for reviewing PST and mbox files.

The message files are named export_name-account-randomstring.mbox or export_name-account-randomstring.pst, where account is the full email address of the custodian (the account that sent or received the message).

If the messages for an account exceed 1 GB for PST files or 10 GB for mbox files, they're exported in zip files. The files within are appended with a 6-character randomized string. The zip files are numbered sequentially.

For example, if there are more than 10 GB of mbox files in the export, my-export could contain the following files for user1@example.com:

my-export-1.zip
   my-export-user1@example.com-PrDhfQ.mbox
   my-export-user1@example.com-qN96Ew.mbox

my-export-2.zip
   my-export-user1@example.com-f_5gjg.mbox

If you're exporting PST files, the extension of the additional files is .pst.

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 users’ p7m file into Microsoft Outlook.

Message metadata

export_name-metadata.csv

export_name-metadata.xml

  • export_name-metadata.csv–A CSV file that contains message metadata as it exists on Google servers. Open this file in a spreadsheet editor, and use it to connect message metadata with the message contents from the mbox file.
  • export_name-metadata.xml–An XML file that contains message metadata as it exists on Google servers. Open this file in a spreadsheet editor, and use it to connect message metadata with the message contents from the mbox file. 

In addition to the fields that are available in both the CSV and XML, Gmail Classification labels are only included in the XML file.

Learn more about the metadata file.

Accounts and message count export_name-result-counts.csv

A CSV file that lists the accounts of message owners included in the export, the number of messages owned by each account, and how many messages were successfully exported or had errors.

Learn more about the count file.

Drive links export_name-drive-links.csv A CSV file that lists the Drive file hyperlinks extracted from the Gmail message content. This file is only included if you enable the Export linked Drive files option and there is at least one Drive hyperlink in the exported messages. For each hyperlink, you get the:
  • RFC822 message ID of the email containing the link
  • Unique message ID of the email containing the link
  • Hyperlink to the Drive file
  • Document ID of the Drive file

If the same email ID appears more than once, multiple Drive links were found in the same message body.

The CSV file includes the hyperlinks regardless of whether you have permission to export them. You can look up the document ID in the Drive export files or error metadata to see if the export of a hyperlink was successful.

Error report

export_name-errors.xml

An XML file that lists errors retrieving messages. It's always part of the export, even when no errors occurred.

Learn more about the error report.

Messages that didn't convert to PST export_name-conversion_errors-N.zip

When you export in PST format, this file contains any messages that weren't converted to PST. Each message is a separate EML file named with the value of the Message-ID: header for each message.

You get many zip files when there are more than 10 GB of messages.

File checksums File checksums A file that lists the message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files in the export.

Google Chat & Groups exports

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Information File name Description
Message contents export_name-N.zip

Zip 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.

Google Groups membership information export_name-group-membership.csv

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–MEMBER for a group member, MANAGER for a group manager, or OWNER for a group owner
  • Type of account–USER for an individual user account or GROUP for a group email address
Message metadata

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.

Accounts and message count export_name-results-count.csv A CSV file that lists the accounts of message owners included in the export and the number of messages owned by each account.
Error reports

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
File checksums File checksums Lists the message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files in the export.

Google Drive exports

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Information File name Description
Files export_name_N.zip

Contains 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.
  • Google Vids to MP4

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.

File metadata export_name-metadata.xml

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

Learn more

Accounts and doc IDs export_name-custodian-docid.csv

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 files option. For details, go to Start an export.

Error reports

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
File checksums File checksums The file lists the message digest 5 (MD5) hash values for all files in the export.

Google Voice exports

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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.

Google Calendar exports

Information File name Description
Files export_name_N.zip

Internet 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

File metadata export_name-metadata.csv An identifier for each event and the account to which it belongs
Accounts and event count export_name-result-counts.csv

The file includes for each account:

  • AccountStatus—Indicates whether the export for this user was successful. It displays Success, PartialAccountError if some events are missing for this user and AccountError if 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).
Error reports export_name-errors.xml

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).

Gemini app exports

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Information File name Description
Conversation content export_name.zip

A zipped file containing one XML file for each conversation owner. Each XML file contains the exported prompts and responses that match your search criteria.

To provide context, Vault includes all prompts and responses from the same conversation sent 12 hours before and 12 hours after the matched prompt or response.

Learn more about the Gemini app conversation content file.

Accounts and conversations count export_name-result-counts.csv

A CSV file that lists the accounts of conversation owners included in the export and how many messages were successfully exported or had errors.

Learn more about the Gemini app count file.

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

export_name-error.xml

An XML file that lists errors retrieving conversations. It's always part of the export, even when no errors occurred. Learn more.

Note: Unlike other services, Gemini app exports don’t include a metadata file.

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 Description column. 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

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