Important: If you download your Google data, it doesn’t delete it from Google’s servers. Learn how to delete your account or how to delete your activity.
You can export and download your data for the Google products you use, for example:
- Email
- Documents
- Calendar
- Photos
- YouTube videos (Tip: If you can't find some of your YouTube videos, check if you have a Brand Account. If you have a Brand Account, you may need to switch accounts.)
- Registration and account activity
To keep your records or transfer your data to another service, you can create an archive.
Important: If your actions seem risky, in order to protect your account, your actions may be delayed or unavailable.
Step 1: Select data to include in your download archive
- Log into your Google Account.
- Go to the Google Takeout page. Google products which you utilize and hold your data are automatically selected.
- If you don’t want to download data from a product, uncheck the box beside it.
- If you only want to download some of your data from a product, you may have the option to select a button like All data included
. Then, you can uncheck the box next to data you don’t want to include.
- Select Next step.
Step 2: Customize your archive format
Delivery method**
We'll email you a link to download your Google data archive.
- For "Delivery method," select Send download link via email.
- Select Create export.
- In the email that arrives, select Download archive.
- To download your Google data, follow the steps on the screen.
We'll add your archive to Google Drive and email you a link to its location. Your data will count toward your storage.
- For "Delivery method," select Add to Drive.
- Select Create export.
- In the email that arrives, select View in Drive. You'll see a folder with your data organized by product.
- To download your data, at the top of the screen, select Download
.
We'll upload your archive to Dropbox and email you a link to its location.
- For "Delivery method," select Add to Dropbox.
- Select Link accounts and create an export.
- You'll be directed to Dropbox. Sign in to your Dropbox account if prompted.
- In the Dropbox window that asks if Google Download Your Data can access its own "Apps" folder in your Dropbox, select Allow.
- To keep your data private, make sure you're not sharing this Dropbox folder with anyone else.
- In the email that arrives, select View in Dropbox. You'll be taken to the Dropbox folder with your archive.
- To download your data, follow Dropbox's process to download files.
Note: If you’re enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program, your archive will be scheduled for two days in the future.
We'll upload your archive to Microsoft OneDrive and email you a link to its location.
- For "Delivery method," select Add to OneDrive.
- Select Link accounts and create an export.
- You'll be directed to Microsoft. Sign in to your Microsoft account if prompted.
- In the Microsoft window that asks if Google Download Your Data can access your info, select Yes.
- To keep your data private, make sure you're not sharing this OneDrive folder with anyone else.
- In the email that arrives, select View in OneDrive. You'll be taken to the OneDrive folder with your archive.
- To download your data, follow OneDrive's process to download files.
Notes
- After you follow these steps, Google Download Your Data will show up in your Microsoft OneDrive security and privacy settings as an app that can access some of your info. You can remove Google's access at any time. (If you export data to OneDrive in the future, you'll need to give Google access again.)
- When your archive reaches Microsoft OneDrive, Google is no longer responsible for it. Your archive will be governed by Microsoft’s terms and policies, e.g. the Microsoft Services Agreement.
We'll upload your archive to Box and email you a link to its location.
- For "Delivery method," select Add to Box.
- Select Link accounts and create an export.
- You'll be directed to Box. Sign in to your Box account if prompted.
- In the Box window that asks if Google Download Your Data can access your info, select Grant access to Box.
- To keep your data private, make sure you're not sharing this Box folder with anyone else. If you are exporting to an enterprise account, the admin will be able to view your data even if no sharing link is created.
- In the email that arrives, select View in Box. You'll be taken to the Box folder with your archive.
- To download your data, follow Box’s process to download files.
Notes
- After you follow these steps, Google Download Your Data will show up in your connected apps as an app that can access some of your info. You can remove Google's access at any time. (If you export data to Box in the future, you'll need to give Google access again.)
- Your selected max archive size will decrease if your Box account's max file upload size is smaller. Files in your archives that are larger than your Box account's max file upload size will not be exported to Box.
- When your archive reaches Box, Google is no longer responsible for it. Your archive will be governed by Box’s terms and policies, e.g. the Box Terms of Service.
Export type
Create a single archive of your selected data.
Note: If you’re enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program, your archive will be scheduled for two days in the future.
Automatically create an archive of your selected data every 2 months for one year. The first archive will be created immediately.
Note: If you’re enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program, scheduled exports aren’t available.
File type
These files can be opened on almost any computer.
You may need additional software to open these files on Windows.
Archive size
Choose the maximum size archive you want to create. If the data you’re downloading is larger than this size, multiple archives will be created.
Step 3: Get your Google data archive
When your archive is created by using one of these options, we'll email you a link to its location. Depending on the amount of information in your account, this process could take from a few minutes to a few days. Most people get the link to their archive the same day that they request it.
Note: If you’re enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program, your archive will be scheduled for two days in the future.
Data you've deleted
When you delete data, we follow a process described in the Google Privacy Policy to safely and completely remove it from your account. First, deleted activity is immediately removed from view and no longer used to personalize your Google experience. Then, we begin a process designed to safely and completely delete the data from our storage systems.
Data such as items from My Activity, photos, or documents that are still in the process of being deleted are not included in your archive.
Important: If the info that you look for isn’t available with these tools, visit our Privacy Help Center, where you can learn what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information. If the info has been deleted from our storage systems, it is unlikely to be recoverable.
Common questions
Refer to our Privacy Help Center, where you can learn what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information.
If the info you are looking for is not available via the tools mentioned above, submit a data access request and specify:
- The categories of personal info you're seeking;
- The products or services to which the data relates;
- Any approximate dates when you think the data may have been collected by Google.
You’ll need to sign in to your Google Account to complete the form.
Important: You can also call our toll-free number, 855-548-2777. Our representatives can answer many of your questions and help you fill out the form to ensure we are providing information to the account owner.
Once your data export request is complete, you will receive an email notification containing a link to the folder where your data is located.
If you selected “Send download link via email” then you will be redirected to the folder containing your data in Google Takeout to download your data.
Otherwise, it will link you to the location of the folder containing your data in the cloud destination (Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive) that you selected.
Deciding what format you should choose depends on the service, type of data, and your intended use of it. We have chosen types that we believe are the most useful and portable. For example, we export contacts as vCard, which is a very common format for email providers. We often will also provide additional options to fit your specific needs.
If you’re unable to download your data, try selecting fewer product files to export and/or request a smaller archive data size from dropdown options within the product. Additionally, try exporting to a third-party storage site such as
Box or Storage.
HTML files can be opened in any standard Browser; CSV and JSON files can be opened in TextEdit software, industry standard inbox or ICS-specialized service.
At this time, we do not currently support exporting data for certain time frames.
You can store your data anywhere that is safe and has enough room for it. In most cases, it is easiest to download it directly to your computer.
If you use a public computer, store it in Google Drive or an alternate storage space where you are the only user.
Note: If you use Google Drive and plan to delete your Google Account, you'll have to move your archive to a different storage space before deleting your account.
If you downloaded your data to your device, you can share it directly with a third party app or website using that third party’s access point. This access point can take different forms, including an email address or a third party app or website’s custom built upload functionality where you can upload the data directly.
If you added your data to a cloud storage destination such as Drive, Box, OneDrive, or Dropbox, you can directly share your data from the cloud provider to a third party app or website. In many instances, this will involve sharing your data directly from the cloud provider to the third party via email supported by the cloud provider.
In some instances, a third party app or website may integrate directly with a cloud storage destination and give you the ability to grant the third party access to read your data directly from the cloud destination.
Archives that are larger than the size limit you selected are split into multiple files.
To decrease the possibility that your archive will be split, you can select the 50GB size limit.
Note: Special software may be required to unpack a tgz archive. Keep in mind that these types of files can't have unicode characters in the file names.
Your archive expires in about 7 days. After that time, you'll want to create a new archive with your most up-to-date information.
An expired archive doesn't mean your data has expired, and you won't experience any change in Google services as a result.
Note: We only allow each archive to be downloaded 5 times; after that, please request another archive.
The security of your data is very important, so when you create an archive, we want to make sure that you're the only person downloading your data.
To do that, we ask you to re-enter your Google Account password if you haven't recently. We understand that this may be inconvenient, but it's important to take extra steps to keep your data safe.
Note: If your account has 2-Step Verification turned on, you may also be asked to complete an additional verification step.
If something goes wrong with your archive or you're not able to make one, try creating another one. This approach often fixes the problem.
Alternatively, try downloading the data in smaller increments by choosing one product or service at a time. This may be effective if you are attempting to download a large amount of data.
We recommend downloading and viewing Takeout exports from a desktop computer, not a mobile device. Within your archive will be a file named archive_browser.html that will have additional information about the file formats, how to open the file, and view the data.
The file may not include changes made to your data between when you request a download and when the archive is created. Some examples include:
- Changes to sharing type or permissions for a Drive file
- Resolved comments on a Drive file
- Added or deleted photos or albums
When you export your mail from Gmail, each message's labels are preserved in a special X-Gmail-Labels header in your download file. While no mail client recognizes this header now, most mail clients allow for extensions to be written that could make use of the labels.
If you aren’t able to download some of your YouTube videos, check to find out if your YouTube channel is linked to a Brand Account. If it is, you’ll need to:
- Make sure you’re signed in to the Google Account associated with the Brand Account.
- Switch to the Brand Account you used to upload the videos to YouTube.
Tip: If you have more than one Brand Account, you can repeat these steps to download videos from your other Brand Accounts.
The Takeout user interface supports parameters, so apps can customize the user interface. For example, apps can select specific products, the destination for cloud exports, and the frequency for scheduled takeouts.
Here is an example of the format for a url utilizing all three parameters is:
https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/google_account,my_activity,fit,youtube?dest=drive&frequency=2_months
Tip: This example is a work in progress, and may be updated from time to time. The possible values for applications or other products to include can be found in the source of the rendered html within the css attribute(s) titled “data-id”. For example, possible values for the “dest” parameter include "box", "dropbox", "drive", "onedrive". The possible values for the “frequency” parameter include “2_months”
To identify the value of the data-id property for products with data capable of being exported for your account:
Important: These instructions are for use with Chrome. If you use another browser, the process may vary.
- On a computer, visit takeout.google.com.
- Right-click on the Takeout web page and select the "source page" view. This will allow you to see the HTML code that makes up the page.
- Use the search command (Control + F on Windows or Command + F on Mac) to identify the “data-id” property.
- Check the search results. What appears after the “data-id=” are the relevant values. For example: data-id="blogger"
Google has also released a new set of advanced features (Data Portability API) for developers, for the use of data by third-party applications. You can find all the available documentation at https://developers.google.com/data-portability.
- Based on the time the photo or video is downloaded, your operating system can assign a new timestamp to the file itself. The photo or video metadata still has the original timestamp preserved in the metadata embedded within the files.
- Any additional metadata that isn't from the original file, like comments within Google Photos, are downloaded to a secondary JSON file.
Common Google product download questions
Videos are downloaded in their original format, or as MP4 files with H264 video and AAC audio.
Only owners can download a group's messages and membership.
If you're a member or manager, ask the owner to download the info you want and share it with you. Or, if you get messages delivered to your email, you can download your history of messages from your email archive.
Unfortunately at this time, we don’t support timeframe exports.
**There are non-Google service providers in this list. When you choose a non-Google service provider option:
1. You allow Google to transfer the files on your behalf to this service provider.
2. Once the files are uploaded to this service provider, Google is no longer responsible for the files. The content in the export is covered by the service provider's terms.
Tip: To understand what is shared, review the data yourself.
Send us feedback
Let us know about your experience downloading your Google data. By sharing your feedback, you help Google improve this product for you and other people.
Related resources
. Then, you can uncheck the box next to data you don’t want to include.
.