Key takeaways
- Google Chat shows message activity under Reporting > Apps Reports > Google Chat, and a 28-day count per user in the Apps usage report, but both reach back only about six months.
- Vault exports Chat as PST or mbox ZIP files, with a results-count.csv file that lists how many messages each account owns, and the files are deleted after 15 days.
- A Vault export includes messages sent with history on and leaves out history-off messages, linked files and external spaces; without Vault, a super admin can use the Data export tool.
- You don't need to export anything to apply: have your message count, years of history and number of Chat users ready, and the data vendor anonymizes the records before any AI lab sees them.
01
What is Google Chat data, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
Google Chat data is the written history of a company's team messaging in Google Chat: the messages in its spaces, its direct messages and the threads of replies, each tied to a sender, a place and a time. 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 a chat thread records a request being turned into finished work, step by step.
What Google Chat records
Google Chat is the messaging app inside Google Workspace, the suite of business tools that also includes Gmail, Drive and Meet. A space is a shared room for a team or a topic, and people also write one to one in direct messages and in small group messages. A reply to a message forms a thread.
Every message carries the name of its sender, the space or conversation it was posted in, and the time it was sent. Over the years, a company's Chat accumulates all of these, together with the files people attach.
Why a chat 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. Published text shows finished results, but a Chat space shows how the result was reached: a coordinator asks for something, a colleague answers, and the job moves forward.
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 into 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.
How Google Chat fits into a dataset
Chat is usually one of several apps in a company's dataset, next to email (see the Gmail page) and documents (see Google Drive). 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 Google Chat show how much data you have?
The short answer
Google Chat shows message activity in the Admin console under Reporting > Apps Reports > Google Chat, and per-user counts under Reporting > User Reports > Apps usage. Neither report gives an all-time total, so the most reliable number is the message count file that comes with a Google Vault export. Opening the reports needs an admin with the Reports privilege.
How to read your message activity
The steps below read the size of your Chat from the Admin console, Google's control panel for a Workspace account. Each step names the menu you need.
- Sign in to the Google Admin console as an admin who holds the Reports administrator privilege.
- Open Menu > Reporting > Apps Reports > Google Chat. The page charts active users, messages sent (split into regular, video and audio messages, and into internal and external), and spaces activity. Download saves the data, and Manage Reports chooses which charts appear.
- For per-user figures, open Menu > Reporting > User Reports > Apps usage and read the Chat messages or reactions, 28-day column.
- For a full count on an edition that includes Vault, export Chat from a Vault matter as described further down. The export includes a file that lists the accounts and how many messages each one owns.
Google describes these reports in its guides to Chat analytics and the Apps usage report.
What each source of numbers covers
| Where | What it counts | Format | How far back it reaches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apps Reports > Google Chat | Messages sent over time | Chart and download | Recent window, about 6 months |
| User Reports > Apps usage | Chat messages or reactions per user | 28-day column | Most metrics go back 6 months |
| A Vault export | Messages per account | Results count file | The full history Vault can reach |
Why the report figures are not an all-time total
Reports describe recent activity, not the whole life of the account. Google keeps report data for about six months unless a report states otherwise, as its data retention page notes, and the Chat reports can lag by one to three days.
A company that has used Chat for four years therefore cannot read its history from a report. Scaling six months of activity up to the number of years in use gives an estimate, and the Vault count file gives the real figure.
03
What should you know about your Google Chat data before you apply?
The short answer
Have three facts ready: how many messages your Chat holds, how many years it covers and how many people use it. 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 message count
Chat is measured in messages. If you have run a Vault export, add up the numbers in its count file. If you have not, scale the six months of Apps usage figures to the years the company has used Chat, and tell the vendor the result is an estimate.
The years of history
The years of history run from the earliest message date in the Vault metadata file, or from the day Chat was turned on for the company if you have no export. Count only what still exists, because deleted messages are gone unless a Vault retention rule kept them.
The number of seats
A seat here means a person with a Workspace license who actually uses Chat. Count those people, not every license the company pays for.
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 Google Chat history?
The short answer
Google Vault is the route that exports Chat messages. In Vault, you open a matter, choose Chat as the service and All data as the source, pick the accounts or organizational unit, set the full date range and export as PST or mbox. Without Vault, a super admin can run the Data export tool at Data > Data import & export > Data export in the Admin console.
Who can export, and which editions include Vault
Vault is Google's tool for keeping and searching a company's records, and it is built for legal and compliance work. To export from it, a person needs the Manage Matters, Manage Searches and Manage Exports privileges, which the Workspace administrator assigns, as the Vault export guide explains.
Vault comes with Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline Standard, Frontline Plus, the education editions, and domain-verified Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus. Other editions need a Vault add-on license, according to Google's Vault overview.
Exporting with Vault: the steps
- Sign in at vault.google.com. Under Matters, open an existing matter or press Create, name the new one and save it.
- Choose Chat as the service and All data as the source.
- Choose who to search. You can enter up to 5,000 individual accounts, select a child organizational unit with fewer than 5,000 members (the top-level unit is not allowed, and any units beneath your choice are included), or find spaces by their members' email addresses.
- For accounts or an organizational unit, switch on the option to include messages in Chat spaces. Vault searches a space only when one of the searched accounts belongs to it.
- Set the time zone and the full Date sent range, and leave Terms empty so nothing is filtered out. Start and end dates are inclusive.
- Press Export to skip the preview. Name the export, avoiding special characters, pick the region if your company has a data region policy, choose PST or mbox, and press Export again.
- Download the files within 15 days. After that Vault deletes them and the export has to be run again.
Google lays out the search options in its guide to searching Chat in Vault.
What a Vault export contains
A Vault Chat export arrives as ZIP files holding PST or mbox files of messages. The exact message details include when a sender edited or deleted a message. Vault splits the output into several ZIP files when it covers more than one account, or when a PST file passes 1 GB or an mbox file passes 10 GB.
Alongside the messages comes a metadata file in XML or CSV, which lists each conversation's room ID, room name, participants and conversation type. A separate file ending in results-count.csv lists every account and the number of messages it owns, and that is the file to total for your message count. Google documents all of these files in its Vault export contents guide.
What a Vault export leaves out
Vault searches and exports only Chat messages that were sent with history on. It does not export messages sent with history off, files that are merely linked (Vault indexes only the link), messages in external Chat spaces, or spaces that are still in migration mode.
It does include messages from people outside your company who wrote to your users in direct messages, or posted in your group messages and spaces. A preview shows at most 1,500 messages, so run the export itself to get everything.
Limits to plan around
An export that runs longer than 24 hours stops with partial results, and you can continue it to collect the rest. A company can have no more than 20 exports running at once. If multi-party approval is switched on, a second Vault admin must approve the export, or the request is removed after 15 days.
Exporting without Vault: the Data export tool
- Sign in to the Admin console as a super administrator. Google requires that admin account to be 30 days old or older and to have 2-Step Verification turned on.
- Open Menu > Data > Data import & export > Data export and press Set up new export.
- Name the export, choose the whole organization (or specific users, groups or organizational units), and press Start export.
- Wait for the email telling you it is complete, then open it from the Data export table with Actions > View Archive.
Google says the export becomes available no sooner than 48 hours after it starts, usually takes about 72 hours and can take up to 14 days, and it cannot be cancelled from the console. For Chat it covers messages and attachments for spaces created by users in your organization, and it skips deleted data unless Vault kept it. Google's default storage deletes the exported data 60 days after the export begins, as the Data export guide describes, so download early.
Sources: Google Workspace Help, Use Vault to search Google Chat, Vault export contents, Export data from Vault and Export all your organization's data. Steps checked against these pages in November 2026.
05
What stays private when Google Chat data is licensed?
The short answer
The company chooses which organizational units, spaces and date ranges a Vault search covers, and the data vendor replaces names and other personal details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. The company keeps ownership of its Chat history, and the license covers defined records for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
A Vault search is limited to the accounts, organizational unit, spaces and dates you select. A company can therefore license one department's spaces, or only the years it is comfortable sharing, and leave everything else out. 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 a phone number, 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 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
Which Google Workspace editions include Vault?
Vault is built into Business Plus, the Enterprise Standard and Plus editions, the Frontline Standard and Plus editions, education editions, and domain-verified Enterprise Essentials and Essentials Plus accounts. Any other edition has to buy a Vault license separately.
Does a Vault export include Chat messages sent with history turned off?
No. Vault can search and export only Chat messages that were sent with history on, and it also leaves out linked files and messages in external spaces.
How long can we download a Vault export?
Vault keeps an export for 15 days after it starts. After that the files are deleted and the export has to be run again, so copy them to storage you control as soon as they are ready.
Where do we find the number of messages in our Chat?
Open the results-count.csv file in a Vault export, which lists each account and how many messages it owns, and add the numbers. The Admin console reports show activity over a recent window only.
Do we need to export Google Chat before we apply?
No. The application takes about two minutes and shares no data. You only need your approximate message count, your years of history and the number of people using Chat for the intro call, and the full export is needed later, after you sign the license.
Can we license only some of our Chat spaces?
Yes. A Vault search covers only the accounts, organizational unit, spaces and date range you choose, so you decide what leaves the company.
What is Google Chat data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
Chat 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 Google Chat, 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.