GA4 Data Retention: The 2- and 14-Month Settings and What They Affect

This guide is based on Google's Analytics Help pages on data retention, Google Analytics 360, property size classifications, user explorer and data-deletion requests, as published in November 2026. Where we give our own advice, we say so.

What the setting controls

Google describes the data retention controls as the ability "to set the amount of time before user-level and event-level data stored by Google Analytics is automatically deleted from Analytics servers." The period applies to data linked to cookies, user identifiers such as User-ID, and advertising identifiers such as Android's Advertising ID and Apple's IDFA.

In short, it is a deletion schedule for the detailed rows behind your reports. Once a row is past the period, GA4 removes it, and anything that needs those rows can no longer show that date.

The options by property type

Google splits the setting into two parts. User-level data, which also covers key events data, can be kept for 2 or 14 months. All other event data has more choices on a 360 property:

Data	Standard property	360 property
User-level data and key events data	2 or 14 months	2 or 14 months
Other event data	2 or 14 months	2, 14, 26, 38 or 50 months
Age, gender and interest data	Always 2 months	Always 2 months
Google signals data	At most 26 months	At most 26 months
Large (standard) or XL (360) property	Limited to 2 months	XL: limited to 2 months

Three details from the same page are worth knowing. "The two-month retention period is always applied to age, gender, and interest data regardless of your settings." Google signals data is kept for 26 months at most, and if your own setting is shorter, the shorter period applies. Google Ads data inside Analytics is "limited to a rolling 36-month window", and reports with a longer date range show a banner.

Our tip: check this setting on any property you take over. Data already deleted under the old period cannot be brought back, as the next sections show.

What it affects and what it does not

This is the part people usually misread. Google says the setting "does not affect standard aggregated reports (including primary and secondary dimensions) in your Google Analytics property, even if you create comparisons in the reports." It "only affects explorations and funnel reports."

So with a 2-month setting, your Reports section can still show last year's traffic, while an exploration over the same dates comes back short. Google's example: with retention at 14 months and an exploration range of 14 months plus one day, "data for the additional 1 day is not available in your reports." How explorations work, and the other reasons their numbers can differ from reports, is covered in our GA4 explorations guide.

Changing the period

You need the Editor role. Google's steps are: open Admin, check you are in the right account and property, then in the property column go to Data Settings > Data Retention, choose the event data retention period, set the reset switch, and click Save.

• Increasing it applies to "data that you have already collected and that you have not already deleted." It does not bring back anything already removed, which is why the setting is worth changing on day one.
• Reducing it deletes the affected data in the next monthly run. Google's example: going from 26 to 14 months deletes everything older than 14 months in that run.
• The 24-hour wait: "Analytics waits 24 hours before implementing the change. During this 24-hour period, you can revert your change and your data will be unaffected."

Data that reaches the end of its period "is deleted automatically on a monthly basis", so the oldest date you can explore moves forward in steps rather than one day at a time.

Reset user data on new activity

With this switch on, each new event from a user resets the retention period of that user's identifier to "current time plus retention period". Google's example: with 14 months set and a user who starts a new session every month, the identifier "never reaches the 14-month expiry." A user who does not come back before the period ends has their data deleted.

With the switch off, data tied to the identifier is deleted when the period ends, whether the user is active or not. Google notes that the reset "applies to only user-level data", not to event data.

Large and XL properties

Very busy properties lose the longer setting. Under Google's size rules, a property is Large at 25 billion or more events in the prior 31 days, and XL at 250 billion or more (or an average of 15 billion a day over the prior 7 days). When a standard property becomes Large or a 360 property becomes XL, event-level retention drops to 2 months, and older event-level data "becomes inaccessible and is permanently deleted."

Analytics emails all property administrators a warning when the property is on pace to reach the limit, and again when the setting has been reduced. Between the two emails you can cut the number of billable events you send. These thresholds are counted in billions of events, so the warning email is the thing to watch for.

Deleting specific data

Retention is a schedule. To remove particular data sooner, for example after a customer's deletion request, GA4 has two tools. Both need the Editor role and both are permanent.

One user's data: user explorer

In a user explorer exploration, select the ID in the Effective user ID column, click the Delete user icon and confirm. Google says the user's data stops showing in the exploration within 24 hours "and will be permanently removed within the next 63 days." It works for user IDs and pseudonymous IDs, and the Admin API's submitUserDeletion method does the same in code.

Text collected by mistake: data-deletion requests

A data-deletion request removes text collected in event parameters or user properties, such as an email address that slipped into a page URL. The text is replaced with "(data deleted)", "but the event will still be counted in the overall metrics in your reports." Points from Google's page:

• Requests are made in Admin, under Data collection and modification, by date range, events, parameters or user properties, optionally only for values that contain a given text.
• The first 7 days are a grace period in which an Editor can cancel and preview the effect in reports and explorations.
• Processing takes "between 7 and 63 days", and data "must be more than 12 days old before it can be deleted."
• At most 12 active requests per property. Numeric parameters and reserved values such as "(not set)" are not deleted.
• Deleting campaign fields removes that history from attribution; Google says later credit may go to other campaigns or to Direct.

The better fix is not to collect personal data in the first place; our website privacy basics guide covers what to write in your policy.

Which setting to choose

This is our suggestion, not Google's. For most small business properties, 14 months is the useful choice: it lets an exploration compare the same month a year apart, and it costs nothing. Before you switch, check that your privacy policy and any client contract allow keeping the data that long. Decide on the reset switch the same way: on keeps returning users' data longer, off gives a fixed end date for everyone.

If you need event-level history beyond 14 months on a standard property, the usual route is the GA4 BigQuery export, which keeps the exported tables in your own BigQuery project. Our advice is to set it up early, while retention is still deleting older rows in GA4 itself. For the rest of a basic GA4 setup, see our GA4 guide for small business websites.

Frequently asked questions

Does data retention delete my standard GA4 reports?

No. Google says the setting does not affect standard aggregated reports. It limits explorations and funnel reports to the retention period.

What is the longest retention on a free GA4 property?

14 months. The 26, 38 and 50 month options for event data are for 360 properties only, and user-level data stays at 2 or 14 months on both.

If I switch from 2 to 14 months, do I get older data back?

Only data that has not been deleted yet. The longer period applies to data already collected and not already deleted, so data past the old 2-month limit is gone.

Can I undo a change to the retention period?

Yes, within 24 hours. Analytics waits 24 hours before applying a change, and reverting in that window leaves your data unaffected.

Why do age and gender explorations only go back two months?

Google always applies a two-month period to age, gender and interest data, whatever the property setting.

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