How to find and export your Gmail data.
Gmail storage lives in the Google Admin console in the Reporting > User Reports > Accounts report, which lists Gmail storage used for every user. Admins with the Reports privilege can open it, and super admins can see everything. Add up the Gmail storage column and report the total in GB.
Where Gmail shows how much you have.
- Sign in to admin.google.com as a super admin, or as an admin with the Storage and Reports privileges.
- Open Menu > Storage to see how much storage your organization uses against its pooled limit. Hover over the chart to see the split between Gmail, Drive and Photos.
- For per-user figures, open Menu > Reporting > User Reports > Accounts.
- Download the report with All columns selected so it includes Gmail storage used (MB) and User account status.
- Sum the Gmail storage used (MB) column in a spreadsheet and divide by 1,024 to get GB. Keep suspended users in the total, because their mail is still stored. Storage changes can take up to 24 hours to show.
Plan and role. Any Google Workspace edition. The Storage page needs the Storage admin privilege and the Accounts report needs the Reports privilege; a super admin has both.
What to report on the Polyshares intake.
Report Gmail in GB. The intake also asks how many years the company has used it and how many seats it has.
Report the summed Gmail storage in GB. Gmail storage counts messages and attachments, including items in Spam and Trash, so it is a fair measure of the mail history. Leave Drive and Photos out of this number; Drive has its own line on the Polyshares intake.
For years in use, use the year your company moved email onto Google Workspace. If you are unsure, check the date of the oldest mail in a long-tenured mailbox, or the oldest mail imported from a previous system.
Seats are the Workspace accounts that hold mail: active licensed users, suspended users and users on Archived User licenses. Former employees count if their accounts, and so their mail, still exist in your domain.
Export the full history.
- Confirm you are a super admin whose account is at least 30 days old, with 2-Step Verification turned on. If your organization has more than 1,000 users, contact Google Workspace support before you start.
- In the Admin console, open Menu > Data > Data import & export > Data export.
- Click Set up new export, choose Export all user data for the entire organization as the scope, and click Start export.
- Wait for the export to finish. Google says it typically takes 72 hours and can take up to 14 days. The data lands in a Google Cloud Storage bucket as zip files broken down by service.
- Copy the Gmail archives out of the bucket promptly. Google deletes exported data 60 days from the start of the export.
- If you need mail as PST files or only certain mailboxes, use Google Vault instead: open a matter at vault.google.com, search Gmail for the accounts you want, click Export, and choose mbox or PST.
The Data Export tool covers active, suspended, archived and Vault Former Employee accounts, but it skips accounts created in the 24 hours before the export starts. On most editions you must wait 30 days between full exports. Enterprise Plus, Education Plus and Assured Controls editions have no minimum interval.
Google Vault is included in Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline Standard, Frontline Plus, all Education editions, and Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus (domain-verified only). Other editions can buy a Vault add-on license. The person exporting needs the Manage Matters, Manage Searches and Manage Exports privileges. Your organization can run up to 20 Vault exports at once, and each stays available for 15 days.
Vault Gmail exports include CSV and XML metadata files with message IDs, senders, recipients, dates and labels alongside the mbox or PST files.
Users can download their own data with Google Takeout if your admin allows it. Takeout works one account at a time, each archive expires in about 7 days, and it can be downloaded 5 times, so it is not practical for a whole company.
The intake only needs the size, so you do not have to run an export to fill it in. You also do not need to clean or scrub an export. Polyshares handles anonymization before anything moves.
Why Gmail data has value for AI training.
Business email records how a company actually runs: quotes, negotiations, vendor disputes, approvals and customer follow-ups, each with a timestamp, sender and reply chain. A thread shows the request, the back and forth, and the outcome in order.
Years of mailboxes across different roles show how work passes between sales, operations and finance. Attachments such as invoices and proposals sit next to the conversation that produced them, which gives context a document store alone does not have.
What stays private.
Your admins choose which accounts and date ranges go into the export, so executive, legal or HR mailboxes can stay out entirely.
We anonymize identifying details before anything moves. Polyshares does that work, so your team does not have to scrub records first.
Your company keeps ownership of its data. The license is bounded to defined material and a defined use.
Polyshares is the buyer and pays your company directly. There is no fee or commission, and Polyshares reviews the record before it makes any offer.
Common questions about Gmail data.
Does Gmail storage include Google Drive files?
No. The Accounts report lists Gmail storage used and Drive storage used as separate columns. Total storage used also includes Drive and Photos, so report only the Gmail column here.
Can we export mail from former employees?
Yes, if their accounts still exist as suspended or archived users. The Data Export tool includes suspended, archived and Vault Former Employee accounts. If an account was deleted, its Workspace data was deleted too, including data held by Vault.
How long does a full Gmail export take?
Google says a Data Export typically takes 72 hours and can take up to 14 days, depending on how much data you have. The exported data is deleted 60 days after the export starts, so download it soon after it finishes.
We are on Business Starter. Can we still export everything?
Yes. A super admin can use the Data Export tool on your edition, with a 30 day wait between full exports. Vault is not included in Business Starter, but you can buy Vault add-on licenses if you need Vault searches or PST output.
Source: Export all your organization's data, Vault overview, User reports: Accounts. Checked September 2026.
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