Most legal teams assume Google Vault has them covered for Google ediscovery. It’s built into Google Workspace and offers a suite of discovery tools for Google Drive files.
But when deadlines hit and the pressure’s on, Vault’s limitations become impossible to ignore — especially if you’re dealing with complex matters, multiple custodians, or evolving compliance requirements.
In this guide, we’ll walk through what Vault can and can’t do, how to structure an effective Google ediscovery process, and where specialized tools like DISCO can fill in the gaps when the stakes are high.
Google Workspace 101
Google Workspace, formerly G Suite, is a cloud-based suite of productivity and communication tools widely used in legal and corporate environments. For ediscovery teams, the most relevant apps include:
- Gmail and Google Chat – primary sources of custodian communications
- Google Drive – central hub for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
- Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides – common sources of collaboratively edited content, or electronically stored information (ESI)
- Google Meet and Calendar – meeting records, transcripts, and timestamps that support timeline validation
While Vault is Google’s primary tool for managing discovery, not all Workspace plans include access by default. Legal and compliance teams typically rely on the Business Plus or Enterprise tiers, which offer Vault functionality for retention, search, and holds. Lower-tier plans like Business Starter and Standard do not include Vault.
To support defensible discovery workflows, Workspace includes several administrative roles:
- Super Admin – manages global settings, Vault access, and policy configuration
- User Management Admin – adds, suspends, or deletes custodian accounts
- Services Admin – manages service-level settings across Workspace apps
- Vault Admin / Custom role – grants search, export, and hold privileges tailored to legal team needs
What is Google Vault?
Google Vault is Google Workspace’s built-in ediscovery and information governance tool. It allows legal and compliance teams to retain, search, and export data from Gmail, Drive, Chat, and other Workspace apps.
Its core functions include:
- Retention rules – preserve emails, files, and messages based on default or custom policies
- Legal holds – prevent deletion of user data during litigation or investigations, including placing a hold to preserve files relevant to active matters and ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and SOX
- Search and export – locate and extract responsive content by keyword, user, or time frame
- Audit trails – track user actions and document chain of custody during review
While Vault offers a foundational approach to ediscovery, it’s designed for basic internal needs, not high-volume litigation, advanced filtering, or cross-platform investigations. For that, legal teams often turn to platforms like DISCO to augment Vault’s capabilities.
Creating a plan for Google Vault ediscovery
Building an effective Google ediscovery strategy within Vault starts with understanding your organization’s structure and risk profile.
For smaller firms or organizations with minimal litigation history, Vault’s native tools may offer just enough functionality — especially if internal policies are clear and consistent. But larger teams, heavily regulated industries (like healthcare or finance), or organizations facing frequent legal matters will need a more deliberate plan. That includes:
- Defining retention policies that align with compliance obligations
- Setting litigation hold protocols to avoid accidental deletion
- Establishing workflows for identifying relevant custodians and data sources across Gmail, Drive, Chat, and beyond
It’s equally important to define clear ownership within your team. Legal should oversee policy development and hold management. IT should configure Vault settings, execute data searches, and manage admin roles. Business unit leaders may also play a role in flagging relevant data or personnel in an investigation.
Together, this cross-functional collaboration ensures consistency, speeds up response times, and minimizes the risk of data loss or oversight, especially when timelines are tight. The key is to treat ediscovery not as a one-time action but as a repeatable, scalable process that evolves with your organization’s needs.
Below is the typical process you'll follow when exporting Google Workspace data for ediscovery using Google Vault:
Retention rules:
- Set default retention periods based on data type (e.g. 7 years for financial emails, 3 years for internal chats).
- Override defaults for specific matters using holds.
Legal holds:
- Apply holds at the account level to preserve data during active litigation.
- Document hold durations and review them quarterly to avoid over-retention.
Team roles
Legal teams:
- Oversee holds, retention policies, and litigation workflows.
- Review exported data for relevance and privilege.
IT administrators:
- Configure Google Vault settings (e.g. retention rules, access controls).
- Execute searches and exports within defined parameters.
Department heads:
- Identify custodians and data sources during investigations.
How to use Google Vault for Google Workspace data export
When an investigation or litigation request comes in, teams often need to quickly gather emails, files, and messages from across Google Workspace. Google Vault allows you to search for that data, package it into an export, and review it offline or in a separate platform. It’s a structured process, but one with important nuances, especially if you manage data across multiple custodians or Workspace apps.
Vault organizes discovery work into “matters,” which act as containers for each case or request. Inside a matter, you can save search queries, apply legal holds, and generate exports.
Matters organize and store the following components:
- Saved search queries for retrieving relevant data.
- Holds to preserve specific data that cannot be deleted.
- Exports of data for analysis or legal purposes.
- Audit logs to track user activity within the matter.
- Access permissions specifying who can view or manage the matter.
To begin, you’ll create or open a matter, define search parameters (by user, app, or date range), and then preview results before initiating the export.
To export Google Workspace Data using Google Vault, follow these steps
1. Access Google Vault
Log in to Google Vault with your Google Workspace email and password.
You’ll see the Vault dashboard where you can manage matters, searches, and exports.
2. Create or select a matter
Click on “Matters” then “Create” to initiate and name a new matter.
Or select an existing matter if it aligns with your export needs.
3. Set up a search
Open the matter and click “Search.”
Choose the service (e.g. Gmail, Google Drive) from the dropdown menu, and define the search criteria (e.g. email address, date range, filters).
Run the search and wait for the results.
4. Export search results
Click “Export”
Choose the desired format (e.g. MBOX for Gmail, PST for Outlook) and include additional options as needed.
Start the export process.
5. Download and verify exported data
Once the process is complete, go to the “Exports” section and download the exported file (available for 15 days).
Verify the data using an email client (e.g. Thunderbird for MBOX files) or an appropriate conversion tool.
Gmail and Drive are the most commonly searched sources, but Vault also supports Calendar, Chat, and Groups, depending on your Workspace configuration.
Once exported, data is available for download for 15 days. File types vary depending on the source. Emails come in MBOX or PST, and files from Drive are in their native format or JSON.
Vault doesn’t support real-time exports or bulk automation, so it’s worth planning ahead. For high-volume cases or ongoing litigation, this manual process can become a bottleneck — one reason why many legal teams use Vault for early case assessment and transition to tools like DISCO for deeper review and production.
What is Google Takeout?
Google Takeout is a self-service export tool that allows users to download their data from nearly every Google app: Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Photos, YouTube, and more.
While it wasn’t built specifically for legal or compliance purposes, it’s sometimes used in ediscovery to extract individual user data that may fall outside the scope of Vault or when users need to preserve their own records.
Takeout allows users to choose which apps to include, select file formats, and decide whether to receive the exported data via a download link or have it delivered to another cloud storage location. The flexibility is appealing, but it comes with trade-offs. Unlike Google Vault, Takeout doesn’t offer legal holds, audit trails, or administrative oversight. It also requires manual execution and user cooperation, which can raise defensibility concerns if not tightly controlled.
For that reason, Takeout is best used in limited scenarios, such as when Vault doesn’t support a specific data type or when a custodian is leaving the organization and needs to export their account. Legal teams should approach it with caution and ensure clear policies are in place to govern its use.
Key capabilities of Google Takeout
- Data export: Users can export data from any specified Google service.
- File format and destination: Users can choose the file type and destination for their exported data, and choose whether to receive download links or upload directly to the cloud.
- Frequency: Exports can be set to occur once or at regular intervals, which is useful for backups.
- Data conversion: Exported data can be converted to universal formats such as Microsoft Office for Google Drive files or iCalendar for Google Calendar data.
Best practices to make the most out of Google Takeout
- Organize your data: Organize files in Google Drive into folders or categories for easier selection during export.
- Avoid duplications: Duplicating exports unnecessarily wastes storage space and can cause confusion.
- Monitor export progress: Exports can take from minutes to days, so wait for the email notification from Google before downloading files.
- Verify data: Verify extracted data against the originals to ensure completeness.
- Clean up: Google Takeout does not delete exported data, so unnecessary files should be deleted.
Google Vault ediscovery limitations
While Google Vault offers a solid starting point for basic ediscovery needs, it has meaningful limitations that can create challenges for legal teams, especially in high-stakes or high-volume matters.
Google Vault only supports Google app data
Vault only supports data from select Google Workspace apps like Gmail, Drive, and Chat, and it lacks the ability to handle data from third-party tools or broader digital environments. Its search functionality is basic, exports are manual and format-limited, and real-time holds or bulk actions aren’t available.
That means slower timelines, increased risk of error, and more hands-on effort from your team. For organizations with complex data needs, frequent litigation, or strict regulatory requirements, these limitations can become bottlenecks.
Google Vault search and workflow limitations
Vault doesn’t provide advanced search techniques, robust metadata handling, or automated workflows. That leaves legal teams cobbling together exports, converting formats, and tracking defensibility manually. Even simple tasks, like comparing document versions or preserving real-time collaboration data from Docs or Chat, can be frustrating and time-consuming.
Google Vault retention limitations
Google Vault has limited retention policy options, allowing data to be retained for a set period until a specific event occurs. Long-term retention is costly and potentially requires additional tools.
Google Vault export limitations
Google Vault has limited export capabilities, supporting only a few file formats (e.g. PST, MBOX, JSON) and only certain types of metadata (e.g. user activity or file permissions). Also it does not allow multiple comparable exports, programmed exports, or high-volume data backups.
How DISCO corrects for Google Vault’s limitations
DISCO’s cloud-native ediscovery solution is designed to go beyond Vault:
- Supporting a wider range of file types
- Preserving critical metadata
- Enabling fast, defensible search and review across Google Workspace data
With intelligent automation, real-time collaboration, and scalable processing, DISCO eliminates the friction that Vault introduces, freeing legal teams to focus on strategy, not logistics.
Tips for Google Workspace ediscovery
To get the most out of Google Vault, it’s essential to configure it proactively and with your team’s workflows in mind.
Start by enabling comprehensive mail storage to ensure all relevant email data — including routed messages and third-party emails — is captured for search and hold.
Use custom retention rules to manage data lifespan by type or department, and apply Google Drive litigation holds early to preserve potentially responsive content without relying on users to flag it.
Operational efficiency also matters. By labeling files in Drive and Docs, saving commonly used search queries, and assigning privileges based on clear roles, you can streamline day-to-day workflows and reduce bottlenecks between legal and IT.
Just keep in mind that Vault doesn’t offer collaboration features, automation, or advanced analytics. For teams managing repeatable or large-scale discovery, it may make sense to layer in a more powerful platform that supports speed, precision, and cross-functional teamwork.
Google Vault vs. DISCO: Workspace ediscovery, side by side
While Google Vault supports basic ediscovery tasks, it lacks the flexibility and scalability needed for more complex legal matters. Here’s how Vault compares to a dedicated platform like DISCO when managing Google Workspace data:
Summary
Google Vault offers a helpful starting point for ediscovery within Google Workspace, particularly for teams handling straightforward matters or internal requests. But when litigation grows complex, timelines shrink, or data volumes balloon, Vault’s limitations can slow you down — or expose you to risk.
Its lack of automation, limited export options, and narrow search capabilities make Google Vault ediscovery difficult to scale or standardize across teams. For legal departments seeking speed, accuracy, and defensibility at every stage, supplementing Vault with more powerful tools is a practical next step.
Enjoy better Google ediscovery with DISCO
Google Vault provides a solid foundation for basic ediscovery Google Workspace workflows — but it's just your starting point. When matters grow more complex or timelines tighten, DISCO is your strategic upgrade. With advanced search, intelligent automation, and built-in defensibility, DISCO helps you close the gaps and maintain control from hold to review.
Whether you're managing ediscovery in-house or coordinating across internal teams and outside counsel, DISCO gives you the flexibility to scale without losing control. With centralized security, real-time collaboration, and enterprise-grade support, you can confidently handle matters of any size or complexity.
Contact us today to learn how DISCO can unlock your legal team’s ediscovery potential.
DISCO also offers end-to-end ediscovery services, giving you access to world-class experts on demand.
