Workspace Takeout - Mailboxes missing

[NiceRath]

We are currently using the Google Workspace Takeout to create periodic full-backups to archive our organisation data.

But we are seeing users which have their mailbox-export (*.mbox files) missing in the export. (as seen at console.cloud.google.com/storage/browse/...)

The takeout report does not show any errors for the affected users.

Some errors regarding drive files are shown in the report:

• label was not found
• unable to access data

Are we missing someting? Is there some setting that could have excluded those user mailboxes from the takeout?

Using the takeout is useful if one uses the Google Vault retention policies.

Takeout admin menu: https://admin.google.com/ac/customertakeout

Takeout help: https://support.google.com/a/answer/100458?hl=en&fl=1&sjid=15632379329370294317-NA#zippy=%2Cwhat-dat...

[NiceRath]

Has anyone also seen behavior like this?

Is the 'takeout' known to be not that reliable?

[icrew · Accepted solution]

You’re very right—Takeout is known to be horribly unreliable. And since it’s not a “core” app, it’s not possible to get support or report bugs.

Common advice for using takeout includes not even attempting to use it with large accounts, and also only attempting to export data from one service at a time (export your mail messages, then export your drive, then export your photos, etc.). It’s a pain. 

There are quite a number of third-party backup solutions available for Workspace that work far more reliably, if that’s what you’re looking for….

Hope that helps,

Ian

[NiceRath]

Greetings.

Thank you for this information.

It's troublesome that there is so little information about such an issue out there. If we had not found out the data was incomplete by 'accident' we would have assumed there was nothing wrong with the takeout functionality.. 😕

A notice/warning on the takeout page would be enough.

But as you mentioned - we will check-out some other solutions.