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Archive Chat messages

Google Workspace administrators can set up a third-party archiving service to archive Google Chat messages and other content. Chat archiving works by logging messages to an email address specified in the Admin console. This guide describes the format of these email messages.

Archived types

The following content types are archived in Chat messages:

The following content is not archived:

  • Interactions that don't write to the chat stream, such as apps that display a card to users to select an action
  • Interactions outside of Chat that are displayed in rooms but don't write to the chat stream, such as viewing a Task in the Tasks tab

Archive formats

This section describes the format of archived Chat information and gives examples of each type.

Message header metadata and email format

Following is the header format of archive messages. In these examples, the archive address is set to mike@example.com.

  • From: chat-archiving+noreply@google.com
  • Subject: Google Chat activity from DM or Room space ID with users
    • DM: if the message is a direct message or group direct message
    • Room: if the message is in a room
    • ID: Google Chat space ID (used by the Chat REST API)
    • with: email addresses associated with message; if <=5, usernames; if >5, count
  • To: email addresses of all users, plus the archive address

Examples:

From: <chat-archiving+noreply@google.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 10:13 AM
Subject: Google Chat activity from DM 8at_0gAAAAE with rose, mike
To: <rose@example.com>, <mike@example.com>

From: <chat-archiving+noreply@google.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 10:15 AM
Subject: Google Chat activity from Room g2-uKgAAAAE with 6 members
To: <blanche@example.com>, <mike@example.com>, <tansit@example.com>, <audrey@example.com>, <edward@example.com>, <ritwik@example.com>

In addition, Google Workspace Admins can add custom headers by enabling the optional header metadata in the Admin console. An example of optional custom headers:

X-ArchivalProvider-MsgType: Google_Chat
Message-ID: <000000000000ccad6a0598574e66@google.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 17:27:15 +0000
Subject: Chat activity from DM 8at_0gAAAAE
From: chat-archiving+noreply@google.com
To: mike@example.com, edward@example.com

The rest of this section gives examples of each type of archived data.

Membership state changed

When a user joins a room:

[2019-09-23T16:47:17.773827Z] mike marsden (mike@example.com) MEMBERSHIP STATE BECAME JOINED

When a user leaves a room:

[2019-11-27T16:39:05.750194Z] Brian Zhao (brianx@example.com) MEMBERSHIP STATE BECAME NOT A MEMBER

Message was created

[2019-09-23T17:36:57.710319Z] Edward Deng (edward@example.com) POSTED VEiF-WPTkJU:PezyhNYvFzk Good morning!

Message was edited

[2019-09-23T17:37:08.137734Z] Edward Deng (edward@example.com) EDITED VEiF-WPTkJU:PezyhNYvFzk Very good morning!

Message was deleted

[2019-09-23T17:37:14.212127Z] DELETED VEiF-WPTkJU:mn4aIBqVYzs MESSAGE DELETED

User reacted or removed a reaction

[2019-11-27T18:17:58.479409Z] Donna Lee (donna@example.com) REACTED TO fTi4iKLrveQ:fTi4iKLrveQ =F0=9F=99=82

[2019-11-27T18:18:08.730463Z] Donna Lee (donna@example.com) REMOVED REACTION TO fTi4iKLrveQ:fTi4iKLrveQ =F0=9F=99=82

[2019-12-13T19:45:54.168271Z] Natraj Verma (natraj@example.com) UPLOADED
Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/vzf-pjqg-czj POSTED 7-NYOcR7gqQ:7-NYOcR7gqQ let's talk over video

File attachment was added

[2019-12-13T19:50:29.899503Z] Edward Deng (edward@example.com) UPLOADED application/pdf: "kitchen.pdf" POSTED n8dcClo_dWw:gq-ItEhSZvQ wdyt?

The file attachment is added to the email archive if the file is smaller than the maximum file size.

[2020-01-28T17:13:38.332367Z] Edward Deng (edward@example.com) ADDED Google Drive File https://drive.google.com/open?id=11r0l3zuwjgY8k9kw-MWwYq6srSKZTuuLhkr1md2Sl-Y application/vnd.google-apps.presentation: "Test Slides" POSTED _YdFA9wEVVo:_YdFA9wEVVo