Data Retention

Data retention is the setting that controls how long GA4 keeps user-level and event-level data before deleting it, set to either 2 months or up to 14 months.

You choose it in Admin under Data Settings. It governs the granular data behind exploration reports and any analysis that slices by individual user or custom dimension. Standard aggregated reports, the ones showing totals by day, are not affected and stay available regardless. GA4 defaults new properties to the shorter window, so the limit catches people off guard.

You build an exploration comparing this quarter to the same quarter last year. With retention left at 2 months, the earlier period comes back empty because that user-level data was already purged. Switch the setting to 14 months and future comparisons hold, but the data you already lost does not come back.

The change is not retroactive. Raising retention only preserves data going forward, so if you want history beyond 14 months at all, you export to BigQuery, where retention limits do not apply.

Set it to 14 months on day one, because you cannot recover what GA4 already deleted.