Google Vault is the core application of Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) that lets you define what content is stored, and then offers simple search and export features to ensure that it meets your eDiscovery and compliance needs.
Some Google Workspace users misunderstand that Google Vault acts as a backup and recovery service for all their Workspace data. This is not the case – it’s an assumption we want to address early on! Google Vault is designed for archiving, not backup.
What is Google Vault for?
- Archiving – Google Vault allows administrators to create retention rules that control how long data is stored before being deleted from Google user accounts and systems.
- Legal retention holds – administrators can hold individual users’ data to ensure that their data is retained for as long as necessary for legal purposes.
- Search – Google’s powerful search capabilities can be used for all data in an organization’s domain; by user account, date, file type, or keyword.
- Export – all data can be exported from Google Vault for further processing and external use.
- Audit reports – these reports can be used to learn about specific user activities over a period of time.
Google Vault supports:
- Gmail messages;
- Google Chats;
- Google Groups;
- Files on Google Drive and shared drives.
Archiving
The first thing to do when you get access to Google Vault is to set up a retention policy. This explains which users can access which data and for how long. You can create custom rules for your organization based on date ranges, deadlines, and organizational units. These rules will start affecting the data as soon as they are set, so make sure you enter them correctly the first time so you don’t accidentally delete the wrong files.