Key takeaways
- Google shows Gmail storage per user in the Admin console under Reporting > User Reports > Accounts, in megabytes, so you add up the column and divide by 1,024 to report GB.
- A super admin whose account is at least 30 days old, with 2-Step Verification on, exports every mailbox from Data > Data import & export > Data export; Google typically needs 72 hours and deletes the files after 60 days.
- For mail as mbox or PST files, or for chosen mailboxes only, use Google Vault, which is included in Business Plus and above or sold as an add-on.
- You don't need to export anything to apply: have your mail size, years of history and account count ready, and the data vendor anonymizes the records before any AI lab sees them.
01
What is Gmail data, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
Gmail data is the stored history of a company's email: every message its staff sent and received, with the attachments and the dates. AI labs (companies that build and train AI models) and data vendors (companies that anonymize business records and package them for those labs) buy a copy because an email thread keeps a request, the replies and the outcome in order, which shows how a business actually gets work done.
What a Gmail mailbox records
Gmail is Google's email service, and most companies use it through Google Workspace, the subscription that gives each employee a mailbox on the company's own web address. A mailbox holds every message the person sent and received, the files attached to them, and the labels and folders they used to sort their mail.
Over the years, the mailboxes of a company's employees add up to a record of its dealings with customers, suppliers and its own staff: quotes, negotiations, vendor disputes, approvals and follow-ups. Each message carries a sender, recipients and a timestamp, and replies keep the chain of the conversation together.
Why an email thread teaches an AI model something
An AI model learns by studying a very large number of examples and finding the patterns in them, and those examples are called training data. Public text shows finished results, such as a published article, but almost none of it shows how a request was handled. An email thread shows the handling itself: a customer asks for a quote, a colleague checks prices, a manager approves a discount, and the customer replies with an order.
AI labs now want to train AI agents, software that carries out a job step by step, and an agent learns a job from records of that job being done. A data vendor can turn anonymized threads into worked examples that an agent studies like an answer key, or build a practice copy of a team's workflow in which the agent is scored on each attempt. The full mechanism is in AI training data: why AI companies want your company's data.
Mailboxes from several roles show how work passes between departments, for example from sales to operations to finance. Invoices and proposals attached to a message stay beside the conversation that led to them, which gives a model context that a folder of loose documents cannot.
How Gmail fits into a dataset
Gmail is one of several apps in a company's dataset, which usually also includes documents, chat and tickets. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to. The price covers the whole dataset, not each app on its own, and what your data is worth explains what moves it.
02
Where does Gmail show how much data you have?
The short answer
Google shows Gmail storage per user in the Google Admin console, in the Gmail storage used (MB) column of Reporting > User Reports > Accounts. An admin with the Reports privilege can open it, and a super admin can see everything. Adding up the column and dividing by 1,024 gives your total in gigabytes (GB).
How to read your Gmail storage
Google measures mail by the space it takes, not by the number of messages, so the steps below end in a size in GB. Each step names the menu you need.
- Go to admin.google.com and log in as a super admin, or as an admin who has been given the Storage and Reports privileges.
- Open Storage from the Admin console menu (Menu > Storage, which Google's help page words as Menu > Apps > Storage). It shows how much storage the organization uses against its shared limit, and hovering over the chart splits the use between Gmail, Drive and Photos.
- For figures per person, open Menu > Reporting > User Reports > Accounts.
- Choose Download, select every column so the file includes Gmail storage used (MB) and User account status, and pick a format. Google limits a download to 100,000 rows, as its Accounts report guide explains.
- Open the download in a spreadsheet, total the Gmail storage used (MB) column and divide by 1,024 to convert megabytes to GB. Suspended users stay in the total because Google still stores their mail, and recent changes can take up to 24 hours to appear.
Who can open the reports
Any Google Workspace edition has the Storage page and the Accounts report. What differs is the admin privilege each one needs.
| Where | Privilege needed | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Storage page | Storage admin privilege | Organization-wide use, split between Gmail, Drive and Photos. |
| Accounts report | Reports admin privilege | Gmail storage used (MB) and account status for each user. |
| Both | Super admin | Holds every privilege, so it can open both. |
What the Gmail figure counts
Gmail storage counts every message and attachment, even those sitting in Spam and Trash, which makes it a sound stand-in for the size of the mail history. The Accounts report lists Drive storage in a separate column, and Photos has its own use, so the Gmail column is the one to add up for email.
Why the figure can fall short of the all-time total
Storage only counts mail that still exists. Messages that users or retention rules permanently deleted are gone, and when an account is deleted, its Workspace data is deleted with it. A mailbox that was moved onto Google Workspace from an older system also counts only what was imported, so the real history may be longer than the figure suggests.
03
What should you know about your Gmail data before you apply?
The short answer
Have three facts ready: how many GB of mail your accounts hold, how many years it covers and how many accounts hold mail. They go into the data manifest, the written summary of which apps hold your records, how many years each covers and roughly how much. You don't need to run an export to find them, and applying through micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, shares no data.
The size in GB
The size is the Gmail storage total from the Accounts report, converted to GB. Leave out the Drive and Photos columns, because Drive is described on its own page.
The years of history
The years of history run from the year your company started using Google Workspace for email. If that date is unclear, look at the oldest message in the mailbox of someone who has been there a long time, or at the oldest message imported from an earlier email system.
The number of accounts
The account count is the number of Workspace accounts that still hold mail. That includes active licensed users, suspended users and users on Archived User licenses, plus former employees whose accounts, and therefore mail, remain in your domain.
What you don't need to do first
You don't need to export anything to apply, and you don't need to clean or scrub an export. The data vendor anonymizes the records before anyone else sees them, and nothing moves until a lawyer-reviewed license is signed. The application, the intro call and each later step are laid out in how to sell your company's data.
04
How do you export your full Gmail history?
The short answer
A super admin starts the export in the Admin console under Data > Data import & export > Data export, chooses the whole organization and presses Start export. Google typically needs 72 hours and can take up to 14 days, and it deletes the files 60 days after the start. For mail as mbox or PST files, or for chosen mailboxes only, use Google Vault.
What the person exporting needs
Only a super admin can run the export, the account must be older than 30 days, and 2-Step Verification must be switched on for it, as Google's guide to exporting all your organization's data requires. Google asks organizations with more than 1,000 users to contact Google Workspace support before they start.
The Data Export tool: the steps
- Confirm that the super admin account meets the requirements above.
- In the Admin console, go to Menu > Data > Data import & export > Data export.
- Press Set up new export, name it, pick Export all user data for the entire organization for the scope, then press Start export. The console has no cancel button once the export is running, so check the scope first.
- Wait for Google's emails to the super admins, which announce when the export is pending and when it is complete. Google places the finished data in a Google Cloud Storage bucket (online file storage that Google provides), arranged as zip files for each service.
- Copy the Gmail archives out of the bucket promptly, because Google deletes the exported data 60 days after the export started.
Google Vault: the steps for PST files or chosen mailboxes
Google Vault is Google's archiving and search tool for Workspace data, used for legal and compliance work. It exports only the accounts you search, in the form lawyers expect.
- Sign in at vault.google.com as an admin who holds the Manage Matters, Manage Searches and Manage Exports privileges.
- Open a matter, which is Vault's folder for one piece of work, and search Gmail for the accounts and dates you want.
- Press Export and choose mbox or PST as the format.
- Download the export within 15 days, when Vault deletes it. An organization can run up to 20 Vault exports at once.
Vault comes with the Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline Standard and Frontline Plus editions, all Education editions, and the domain-verified versions of Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus, as Google's Vault overview lists. Other editions, such as Business Starter, can buy Vault add-on licenses.
How the two routes compare
The Data Export tool covers a whole organization with one run, while Vault is built to pull exact mailboxes in standard mail formats. The diagram sets the two side by side.
What the export covers and leaves out
The Data Export tool covers active, suspended and archived accounts and Vault Former Employee accounts. Accounts that were created within a day of the export starting are left out, and mail from deleted accounts cannot be returned unless Vault was holding it.
On most editions, Google lets you run a full export only once every 30 days. Enterprise Plus, Education Plus and Assured Controls editions have no minimum gap.
A Vault Gmail export includes CSV and XML metadata files alongside the mbox or PST files. They list the message IDs, senders, recipients, dates and labels for each message, as Google's Vault export contents page describes.
Why Google Takeout is not enough
Individual users can download their own mail with Google Takeout if the admin allows it. Takeout works for one account at a time, each archive expires after about 7 days and can be downloaded 5 times, so it does not suit a whole company.
What to settle before exporting mail
Employees' mailboxes hold personal and customer information, so the company's lawyer should confirm that licensing the mail is allowed under its employment agreements, privacy policies and customer contracts. Is it legal to sell company data covers the questions to ask. Leaving out the mailboxes of executives, legal and HR is a normal way to begin.
How long an export takes
Google says a Data Export typically takes 72 hours, can take up to 14 days depending on how much mail you have, and is not available sooner than 48 hours after it starts. Plan for the 60-day download window from the day you press Start export.
Sources: Google Workspace Admin Help, Export all your organization's data, Vault overview, Vault export contents and User reports: Accounts. Steps checked against these pages in November 2026.
05
What stays private when Gmail data is licensed?
The short answer
The company decides which mailboxes and date ranges are in scope, and the data vendor replaces names, email addresses and other personal details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. The company keeps ownership of its mail, and the license covers defined records for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
Admins decide which accounts and date ranges go into the export. Executive, legal and HR mailboxes can stay out entirely, and the data vendor also deletes records too sensitive to clean safely instead of anonymizing them.
Names are replaced before a lab sees them
Anonymization means replacing every detail that identifies a person, such as a name or an email address, with a stand-in that is the same every time it appears. The thread still reads in order, so a lab can learn from it, but it no longer says who the people are. The diagram below shows one short thread before and after.
The method, including what is deleted outright and how you review samples, is in how company data is anonymized for AI training.
Ownership and payment
Licensing gives the buyer limited rights to a copy, while the company keeps ownership of the originals. The terms that matter, such as exclusivity, permitted use and deletion, are covered in data licensing. micro1 pays in full within 30 days of accepting the data, usually as a single payment.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Where do I see how much Gmail data my company has?
In the Google Admin console, under Reporting > User Reports > Accounts, in the Gmail storage used (MB) column. You need the Reports privilege or a super admin account. Add up the column and divide by 1,024 to get GB.
Does Gmail storage include Google Drive files?
No. The Accounts report keeps Gmail and Drive in separate columns, while the organization's overall storage figure adds Drive and Photos on top. For email, use the Gmail column alone.
Can we export email from former employees?
Yes, provided their accounts still exist in a suspended or archived state. The tool also reaches Vault Former Employee accounts. Once an account has been deleted, its Workspace data is deleted with it, except for anything Vault was holding.
How long does a full Gmail export take?
Google quotes 72 hours as the usual time and 14 days as the longest. Because the files vanish 60 days after the export begins, copy them out as soon as it completes.
We are on Business Starter. Can we still export everything?
Yes, because the Data Export tool is open to a super admin on every Google Workspace edition. Business Starter does not come with Vault, though a Vault add-on license can be bought for searches or PST files.
Do we need to export Gmail before we apply?
No. The application takes about two minutes and shares no data. You only need your approximate mail size in GB, your years of history and your account count for the intro call, and the Accounts report gives you the first and last. The full export is needed later, when the records are transferred after you sign the license.
What is Gmail data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
Email history is priced as part of a whole dataset rather than on its own. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, and the price depends on the years of history and how completely the records show each job. What your data is worth explains the factors.
Bottom line
Know what is in Gmail, then see what it is worth
You don't need to export anything to apply. Apply in two minutes, describe your records on the intro call, and micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, prices the whole dataset and sends an offer 1–2 days later.
Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures come from micro1's published pages and public reporting as of November 2026.