GA4 Property Settings: Time Zone, Currency, Change History and Moving or Deleting a Property

This guide uses Google Analytics Help only, mainly Edit / delete accounts, properties, and data streams and Set up Analytics for a website and/or app, plus the articles linked where they are used. Checked on 12 November 2026. Setting up a property and the two day-one settings are in our Google Analytics 4 basics guide; data retention, Google signals and user roles each have their own guide, linked below.

The property details screen

A property is, in Google's words, "a grouping of data from a website and/or app"; an account holds one or more, up to 2,000. To edit one, go to Admin, and under Property click Property details. You can change four settings there:

• Property name: only a label, but a clear one (site name plus "GA4") saves mistakes when you have access to many.
• Industry category: chosen when the property is created, together with business size.
• Reporting time zone.
• Currency.

The same screen has the Move property and Move to Trash Can buttons. All of these need the Editor role or above at property level; what each role can do is in our GA4 user permissions guide. Stream-level settings such as the website URL, enhanced measurement and cross-domain measurement are not here but on each data stream; see our GA4 data streams guide.

Reporting time zone: what a change does

The time zone sets where each day starts and ends in your reports, whatever time zone the visitor is in. Google's example: "If a visitor comes to your website on a Tuesday in their time zone, but it's Monday in your time zone, the visit is recorded as having occurred on Monday."

Points from Google's help on changing it:

• "Changing the time zone only affects data going forward." Old data is not recalculated.
• On the day of the change you may see "a flat spot or a spike" in your data, as the clock moves forwards or backwards.
• For a short time after the change, report data may still refer to the old time zone.
• Don't change the time zone more than once per day; a second change "might not be processed as expected".
• A time zone with daylight saving time is adjusted automatically. Choose Greenwich Mean Time if you don't want that adjustment.

So pick the time zone your business runs on when you create the property, and if you have to change it later, add an annotation on that date so nobody reads the flat spot or spike as a real change in traffic.

Currency: what a change does

The property currency works the other way round. According to the currency reference, the property's currency is the one all revenue values are shown in, including purchase revenue, tax, shipping, item revenue and total value. The default is US dollars, and "Changes to the global currency type will affect future as well as historical data, and previous data will be converted to the newly configured currency."

That is separate from the currency of each transaction:

• If you send a value with an event, a currency parameter is required for revenue to be computed accurately.
• A business that sells in several currencies can send each transaction in its own currency. Analytics converts it using the exchange rate of the day before.
• In a BigQuery export, raw transaction values stay in the local currency, not the reporting currency.

The ecommerce events and their parameters are covered in our GA4 ecommerce tracking guide.

Data collection settings

Under Admin, Data collection and modification, Data collection holds the switches for what Analytics may collect. Google signals lives here; it has its own Google signals guide. The other main switch is granular location and device data:

• It is collected by default.
• Turned off, Analytics stops collecting city, browser and operating system minor versions, the browser user-agent string, device brand, model and name, and screen resolution.
• You can turn it on or off per region.
• Turning it off keeps the data already collected (within your data retention setting) and stops collection from then on.
• Google warns that turning it off for a region significantly reduces modeled key events there, which also affects linked Google Ads and Search Ads 360 accounts.

For users in the EU, Switzerland and the UK, Google says Analytics does not log or store IP addresses: the IP is used only to derive a coarse location and then discarded.

Property change history

When a number moves and nobody knows why, check Admin, Property change history (there is also an Account change history). It needs the Editor role and keeps a record of changes over the last 2 years. Each row shows:

• Time, location type and location name (the account or property).
• Item type, for example a data stream or a Google Ads link.
• Action: created, modified or deleted.
• Changed by: the user, or a system label such as "System (Migration)". "[deleted user]" means that person's Google account no longer exists.

You can filter by time, item type, action and the email address of who made the change, and open a row to see the before and after state. The date filter uses your computer's time zone, not the property's.

Moving a property to another account

A property can be moved from one account to another, for example after a merger or a change of agency. You need the Administrator and Editor roles in both the source and the destination account. Then: Property details, Move property, choose the destination account, choose how to handle permissions, click Move and confirm.

Moves with the property	Stays behind or blocks the move
Measurement ID (G-...), so no retagging	Change history before the move stays in the source account
All reporting data (moved, not copied)	Subproperties must be removed first; a subproperty can't be moved
Property settings, custom definitions, audiences, data import	A source property must first leave any roll-up property
Data streams and their settings	A Google Ad Manager link blocks the move until it is unlinked
Links such as Google Ads, Firebase and BigQuery	Accounts in different Google Marketing Platform organizations

For permissions you choose between keeping the property's current users (account-level users in the source account become property-level users) or replacing them with the destination account's permissions. Moving is often the cleanest way to hand a client's property back to the client's own account; that sort of access setup is in our GA4 user permissions guide. Subproperties and roll-ups are in our GA4 subproperties guide.

Deleting a property and the Trash

Deleting a property means Property details, Move to Trash Can. Per Google's Delete or restore accounts and properties:

• Items stay in the Trash for 35 days, then are permanently deleted; the deletion is recorded in change history as the Google Analytics System.
• No data is processed while a property is in the Trash.
• To restore: Admin, under Account, Trash, select the item, Restore. It needs the Editor role at account level.
• A restored property keeps its settings, filters, user permissions and product links, and its data streams come back with it. Core reports resume processing within an hour, Realtime within seconds.
• Restoring an account restores its properties, except properties that were moved to the Trash on their own.

Data streams are different: they are deleted directly, not trashed, and "you can't undelete or recover it." Any integration that depends on the stream, such as BigQuery export, stops working.

How we check property settings

This part is our opinion, not Google's. When we take over a GA4 property, we read the property change history first, then check that the time zone and currency match the business and the ecommerce platform, and note any past time zone change as an annotation. We leave granular location and device data on unless the client's privacy review says otherwise, because it feeds modeled key events. We never delete a property to start over; if a property belongs in another account, we move it so the data and measurement ID stay.

Frequently asked questions

Does changing the time zone in GA4 change past data?

No. A time zone change only affects data going forward, and you may see a flat spot or a spike on the day of the change.

Does changing the currency in GA4 change past data?

Yes. A change of the property currency affects future and historical data; earlier revenue is converted to the new currency.

Who can change GA4 property settings?

Users with the Editor role or above at property level. Moving a property also needs the Administrator and Editor roles in both accounts.

Can I recover a deleted GA4 property?

Yes, within 35 days. In Admin, under Account, open Trash, select the property and click Restore. After 35 days it is permanently deleted.

Do I need to retag my site after moving a GA4 property?

No. The measurement ID does not change when a property moves to another account, and reporting data moves with it.

Correct settings matter most when the tracking itself is set up well. See our website development service and all our services, or email [email protected].