Best Google Takeout Alternative in 2025
If you are like me, you know finding a Google Takeout Alternative becomes a top priority for IT administrators the moment they have to offboard an employee.
It’s not just when an employee leaves a company that you have to use Takeout. It can be a batch of students graduating, or even your own private decision to switch from Google to something else. However, the moment you try to get out, you realize it is more than just a simple wave goodbye.
But why is getting your data out of Google a complex procedure? This is because it involves archiving emails, backing up contacts, tallying all the calendar events, and ensuring that all the Google Drive data gets out safely.
You would think that Google, of all companies, would have made it simple to export your data. You are wrong if you have used Takeout, you know why I am saying this. In this blog, I will explain to you why keeping Takeout below-par service is not a mistake but a deliberate business strategy.
We know that you have already tried using the Takeout app in the past and have faced problems; that’s why you are here. So let us not waste time reiterating the Takeout process. Instead, take a look at Google’s official alternative to its Takeout service for enterprise-grade.
Official Google Takeout Alternative and Why it Fails to Deliver?
Many admins do not know this, but in an organization, they can’t directly use the Takeout service to pull any user’s data out. What they are allowed to do is unlock or lock the user-led Takeout service.
This serves as a major limitation, as all admin oversight is eliminated admin just knows that users are allowed to export their data, but doesn’t know when the export will happen.
Also, disallowing the Takeout service organization-wide is not a good idea, as you never know when a user may require some of their data.
To combat this and add an admin-led export process, Google introduced the aptly named Google Data Export Tool.
This is a fairly new addition and is surprisingly available for free. However, there is a catch: most useful features are locked behind a paywall.
It essentially limits your selection options. Consider the scenario where you want to export an entire department by selecting its Organizational Unit (OU) or a project team by its Group. Even filtering an export by date range or specific service is only available to those on Enterprise or Assured Controls plans.
That is why this service is out of reach and not a viable option for most Google Workspace subscribers.
Should You Use Google Vault as Your Alternative to Google Takeout?
No. Let me tell you why this is the case.
First of all, Google Vault is a premium service (meaning you have to pay or subscribe to it separately, it’s not part of your regular Google Workspace for business/enterprise plan)
Plus, the G-Vault is built for an entirely different use case, i.e., e-discovery and digital hold. Not data backups and exports. Although it has an Export feature, the steps to set are complicated, to say the least. See for yourself.
To make an Export in Google Vault, you must have the right set of permissions, navigate the clumsy UI of the Vault app, create a Matter, and wait for it to fetch all the details. Then, go back to build an Export batch. Once the export batch is ready, download the data before it expires.
You may be switching to M365 and considering no other way to natively get PST out of a Google service you subscribed to Vault. However, you may not know that the New Outlook rejects all PST files not made exclusively in the Microsoft environment.
So you will again ask this question, how do I import Google Takeout data to an M365 account, but just replace Takeout with Vault.
IT admins are better off using the regular Takeout.
Is Google Takeout Safe? Why Do I Need a Better Alternative?
Google Takeout isn’t an unusable service by any means. And as it is a Google product, its safety is top-notch.
I know why you may have such doubts. I have also had instances where Takeout would just quit abruptly. Or simply refuse to work fast for huge datasets
Moreover, there are limited attempts with no counter to tell how many I have used, making it incredibly difficult to manage multiple export scenarios.
Plus, you dont see any progress bar on how much of the total is done or how much time it will take; everything becomes guesswork. Apart from these, there are many other Google Takeout errors and issues for which admins look for a different method or utility.
End Your Search for a Google Takeout Alternative with This Tool
SysTools Google Workspace Export tool is the go-to solution. It exports organization-wide G Suite data without any of the restrictions that limit Google Takeout.
Unlike Google Takeout, which only provides you with 1-2 output formats, this tool gives you 5.
Also, if you use it, you won’t have to deal with unexpected failures, a common problem that users have to deal with. In a way, you have infinite attempts at exporting the data, as this tool does not have a daily or weekly export attempt cap.
Plus, if new data was generated at the time of initial export, there is a Delta export feature that identifies all the new data and performs an extended export on that particular data.
Even if the export operation is not up to the mark, you get a retry failure option that performs the export on all those items/accounts where the data is missing.
Steps to Use the Best Google Takeout for Business Alternative
- Step 1. Use the Download link to get a copy, install it, and set it up. The tool launches automatically. Once it does, select G Suite as your source and any one of the 5 different output formats based on your requirements.
- Step 2. Now, scroll down and select the Workloads. Depending on what end formats you select, your options vary. Make the check box next to the workload and apply a date filter to limit the export to a specific time period, making the whole process more precise.
- Step 3. On the source screen of this Google Takeout Alternative, you have to perform the Google Workspace admin account Validation. Add in the email address, P12 file, and service account, then Press Validate. Wait for the green signal, then hit Next.
- Step 4. On the Destination screen, you need to select the parent output Folder where all the exported data will reside at the end of the process. There are a few limits on what the path could be; follow that and validate, then press Next.
- Step 5. The user mapping screen provides you with three distinct options, one of which is Fetch, where you ask the tool to collect all the user accounts that are on the Google Workspace account. With Import CSV, you can add a copy of your premade list of users. The third option is to download the Template from the User.
- Step 6. The final step is to check the user list. Mark the ones where you need to export, assign a priority value, validate, and Start Export.
Conclusion
Here, you saw the need for a Google Takeout alternative. We also gave you a checklist so you can make an independent decision while selecting the substitute. To save your time and reduce your effort, you can use the alternative to Google Takeout mentioned in this post. It checks all the boxes you are looking for in an alternative.