How to find and export your Google Drive data.

Drive storage lives in the Google Admin console on the Storage page and in the Accounts user report. Admins with the Storage or Reports privilege can see it. Add Drive storage used by users to the storage used by shared drives and report the total in GB.

At a glance

Report in: GB
Category: Files and documents
Checked: September 2026

Check your data

Where Google Drive 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. Hover over the usage chart to see how much of your organization's storage is in Drive.
On the same page, find Shared drives using the most storage and click View all shared drives for the full ranked list.
For per-user figures, open Menu > Reporting > User Reports > Accounts, download the report with All columns, and sum Drive storage used (MB).
Add the shared drive total to the user total and divide by 1,024 for GB. Storage figures can take up to 24 hours to update.

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 Google Drive in GB. The intake also asks how many years the company has used it and how many seats it has.

Report Drive plus shared drive storage in GB. Files in trash count until they are permanently deleted, and Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms files created after May 2, 2022 count toward storage. Version history does not count, so the full edit history is larger than the number shown.

For years in use, use the year your company started on Google Workspace. The oldest files in long-running shared drives are a good check.

Seats are Workspace users who own files, including suspended users and users on Archived User licenses. A shared file counts only against its owner, so it is not double counted across the people it was shared with.

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 you have more than 1,000 users, contact Google Workspace support first.
In the Admin console, open Menu > Data > Data import & export > Data export and click Set up new export.
Choose Export all user data for the entire organization. This scope includes shared drives; an export filtered to specific users does not.
Click Start export. Google says exports typically take 72 hours and can take up to 14 days. Files arrive in a Google Cloud Storage bucket as zip files broken down by service.
Copy the Drive archives out of the bucket within 60 days of the start date, when Google deletes them.
If you want Office formats and a record of who had access to each file, use Google Vault: search Drive in a matter and click Export. Vault includes shared drive files and adds a custodian-docid.csv listing the users with access.

The Data Export tool includes active, suspended, archived and Vault Former Employee accounts. On most editions you must wait 30 days between full exports; Enterprise Plus, Education Plus and Assured Controls editions have no minimum. Filtered exports for specific users leave out shared drives, Chat spaces, Sites and secondary calendars.

Vault converts Docs to DOCX, Sheets to XLSX, Slides to PPTX, Drawings to PDF, Vids to MP4 and Forms to a zip of HTML and CSV. Exports are split into 10 GB zip files, stay available for 15 days, and your organization can run up to 20 at once.

Vault is included in Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline Standard, Frontline Plus and all Education editions, among others. Business Starter and Business Standard need Vault add-on licenses. Exporting from Vault needs the Manage Matters, Manage Searches and Manage Exports privileges.

Users can download their own files with Google Takeout if your admin allows it, but Takeout works one account at a time and each archive expires in about 7 days. Deleting a user deletes their Workspace data, so keep former employees suspended or on Archived User licenses until the export is done.

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 Google Drive data has value for AI training.

Drive holds the documents a company writes to run itself: proposals, procedures, project plans, pricing sheets and reports. Many go through many drafts, and the final version usually sits in a shared drive next to related files for the same client or project.

Folder and shared drive names label the content for free. A contract, the spreadsheet model behind it and the slide deck that presented it are often stored together, which ties different formats to one piece of work.

What stays private.

You decide which shared drives and users are exported, so HR, finance and legal folders can be left out.

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 Google Drive data.

Are Google Docs exported in a format we can open elsewhere?

Yes, from Vault. Docs become DOCX, Sheets become XLSX, Slides become PPTX, Drawings become PDF and Forms become a zip of HTML and CSV files.

Are shared drives included in the export?

Yes in a full Data Export for the entire organization and in Vault exports. A Data Export filtered to specific users skips shared drives because they are not owned by an individual user.

Does version history count toward Drive storage?

No. Google lists version histories among the things that do not count toward storage, along with Chat messages and Drive shortcuts.

What happens to files owned by people who left?

If the account is suspended or on an Archived User license, the files still exist and the Data Export tool includes those accounts. If the account was deleted, its Drive data was deleted with it.

Source: Review storage use across your organization, Export all your organization's data, Vault export contents. Checked September 2026.

Put your numbers on the intake.

List your systems, their sizes and your headcount in one intake. Polyshares reviews the record and prices it. There is no fee or commission to your company.