Five best solutions for archiving Google Chat data separately or as a part of your offboarding process – to align with retention rules, and scale across thousands of users.
Table of Contents
Why Companies Need to Archive Google Chat Data
For most teams on Google Workspace, Google Chat has become a primary communication channel — replacing email for quick decisions, approvals, shared files, and sensitive operational coordination. Not surprisingly, a lot of valuable data is stored here. Therefore, when an employee leaves the company, archiving their Chat messages makes total sense. If you’re only archiving Gmail (even with the best Gmail archiving tools), you’re losing a huge part of your organizational memory — and even worse, go against several compliance regulations.
Why Chat Archiving Matters
How Should Chat Archiving Be Automated?
You have two strategic options: either build a dedicated Google Chat messages archiving workflow, or treat it as a part of your general employee offboarding and data archiving flow. Based on what option you want to go with, you most probably have to decide on the solutions for Google Workspace data archiving you’re going to use.
Option One — Dedicated Chat Archiving Workflow
Upsides:
- Independent retention and policies (no waiting for user lifecycle)
- Flexible timing (daily, weekly, continuous)
- Good for highly regulated cases where Chat must always be captured
Downsides:
- A separate workflow means separate monitoring
- Does not automatically clean up access or licenses
- Risk of inconsistency with onboarding/offboarding flows
Best fit:
Public sector, finance, healthcare workflow automation — all verticals where Chat data must be preserved regardless of user state.
The #1 Employee Offboarding & Data Archiving Solution For Google Workspace
Zenphi is a go-to platform for employee offboarding and data archiving automation for the teams operating within a Google Workspace environment. Companies like Google, Gordon Food Service, Emerson College and more have chosen Zenphi to automate crucial Google Admin tasks.
Option Two — Chat Archiving Embedded in Offboarding Workflow
Upsides:
- Full data + access lifecycle in one process
- Immediate access removal → reduced insider threat
- License reclamation → massive cost savings
- Cleaner governance — Chat archive always aligned with compliance stage
Downsides:
- Requires flexibility to trigger from real events (not just account deletion)
- Many legacy lifecycle tools may not support Chat metadata + Vault integration
Best fit:
Retail/ wholesale workflow automation, hospitality workflow automation, and any organization with high turnover or seasonal staffing — where timing of offboarding and data archiving matters, costs must scale intelligently, and compliance is tied to user lifecycle management.
The Ideal State
Most modern enterprises ultimately choose both options to go with.
Continuous archiving → Compliance
Event-based archiving → Zero-risk offboarding + cost reduction.
However, to implement this approach you need a solution that would provide you altimate control over the archiving process triggers, timing, archiving method and storage location, ensuring every Chat message that needs to be archived is, without paying for inactive licenses or patchwork tooling. Let’s see what is available on the market.
Best 5 Google Chat Archiving Solutions for 2026
1. Zenphi
Why it stands out: Native Google Workspace automation platform that includes Chat archiving as part of broader offboarding/data governance flows. Zenphi also is the only available solution that provides you full control over triggers + timing + archiving method + storage location.
Key capabilities:
- Flexible Chat Archiving Methods: Zenphi provides two powerful options for Google Chat message archival: a) API-based export: Directly retrieves messages and metadata where chat history is enabled, offering a quick, "best-effort" export of user-visible messages. or b) Vault-based export: Ingests the highly compliant, complete Chat data already exported from Google Vault into your preferred GCP archive, ensuring alignment with your specific compliance and retention configurations. This dual approach gives you maximum flexibility and fidelity.
- Custom Storage Destinations: Unlike tools limited to proprietary archives, Zenphi allows you to archive Chat data and other Workspace assets (Gmail, Drive) to your own Google Cloud Storage (GCP), providing data residency and governance control.
- Deep Workflow Integration: Zenphi excels at creating end-to-end offboarding workflows that go far beyond simple data transfer. It can automate steps like license revocation, device cleanup, and notifying multiple departments (HR, Legal, IT) simultaneously, all triggered by a simple event.
Best for: Organizations needing Chat + Gmail + Drive archiving with lifecycle automation, especially at scale and with sensitivity to data residency. Read more: Zenphi vs CloudM and Bettercloud: Which platform is better for offboarding and data archiving
2. CloudM Automate
Why it matters: Google Workspace-focused lifecycle automation that supports off-boarding and can include Chat/archive steps.
Key capabilities:
- Archive data upon deprovisioning
- Integrate to Google Drive or storage
- Revoke permissions automatically
Best for: Teams primarily focused on Workspace user lifecycle and ready-made steps.
3. BetterCloud
Why it matters: SaaS operations management solution that can archive Chat (and many other applications) as part of lifecycle policy enforcement.
Key capabilities:
- Workflow triggers on user state or policy breach
- Export or archive Chat logs
- Integrate across SaaS stack
Best for: Multi-SaaS governance where Chat archiving is one piece of a broader compliance puzzle.
4. gPanel (by Promevo)
Why it matters: Google Workspace-specific tool with bulk operations, data export/archiving and policy-based triggers.
Key capabilities:
- Export Chat logs
- Automate retention or deletion based on rule
- Store in cloud or on-premises.
Best for: Google-only environments with large volumes and need for structured retention workflows.
5. ArchiveSocial
Why it matters: Specialized archiving vendor that supports messaging apps including Google Chat and Slack, focused on public-sector/compliance markets.
Key capabilities:
- Full thread context
- Legal-hold support
- Search/archive GUI
Best for: Highly regulated industries (education, gov, healthcare) where chat archiving is mission-critical.
Comparison Chart
Choosing the Right Tool for Your 2026 Archiving Strategy
Ask yourself:
Flexibility Wins
As collaboration moves into real-time space (Chat, Rooms, Spaces), ignoring archiving is no longer optional. You need tools that capture full conversation context, integrate with automation and respect your data sovereignty. Gmail archiving alone? Not enough.
If you choose carefully, your tool won’t just archive — it will automate the entire lifecycle of data, governance and access policy, all along providing you flexibility and control over the workflows. That’s where Google Workspace automation platforms like Zenphi lead.
Read More On Google Workspace User Lifecycle Management Automation
Offboarding Automation At Google
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Employee Offboarding Tools Comparison
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Offboarding Checklist
