Guide 84 · Admin · GA4 + Tag Manager
GA4 data retention settings: set 14 months before the 2-month default deletes your history
A new GA4 property keeps user and event data for 2 months by default. Change it to 14 months, the longest a standard property allows, and turn on reset on new activity.
After the trace, Event data retention reads 14 months, Reset user data on new activity is on, and the 24-hour change window is noted.
Download the reference: the data retention settings reference (JSON) (446 bytes, MD5 8b0ee1bb8b2c253d8afd42efc5276d94). It holds the worked example from this guide with every figure recomputed. The file was built for this guide and checked the same day; it was not exported from a live property.
What you need
- Editor access at property level.
- A note of the date you change the setting, because the change is not retroactive.
- A BigQuery link if you need history past 14 months.
The trace
- Open Admin, then under Data collection and modification click Data retention. In the older menu layout the path reads Data Settings, then Data Retention. Both lead to the same screen.
- Read the current Event data retention value. A new standard property reads 2 months. For user-level data the choices are 2 months or 14 months. For all other event data a standard property also offers 2 or 14 months; the 26, 38 and 50 month choices are 360 only.
- Change Event data retention to 14 months. The gap is 14 - 2 = 12 months of extra history. That is the longest a standard property keeps event-level data.
- Turn Reset user data on new activity on. With it on, each new event from a user resets that user's retention clock to the current time plus the retention period. A user who returns every month never reaches the 14-month expiry.
- Click Save, then note the 24-hour rule. Google waits 24 hours before implementing a retention change, and during that window you can revert it with no data lost. After the window, a reduction deletes data older than the new period in the next monthly process.
- Know what the setting does not touch. Retention does not affect standard aggregated reports. It affects explorations and funnel reports, which lose detail once data passes the retention period. Age, gender and interest data are always kept for 2 months, whatever you set.
Dead ends
DEAD END — WAITING UNTIL YOU NEED THE HISTORY. Raising retention applies to data already collected, but only to data not already deleted. Months lost to the 2-month default do not come back.
DEAD END — REDUCING RETENTION TO SAVE SPACE. Reducing from 14 to 2 months deletes everything older than 2 months in the next monthly process. There is no undo after that process runs.
DEAD END — LARGE PROPERTY, LONG RETENTION. When a standard property becomes Large, retention is cut to 2 months automatically and older event data is deleted. Google emails administrators first; that warning is the moment to cut billable events.
End state
The setting moves from 2 months to 14 months, a gain of 12 months, with reset on new activity on and a 24-hour revert window noted. Standard reports are untouched; explorations keep 14 months of detail.
Sources
- Analytics Help — Data retention — the 2 and 14 month choices, the 24-hour wait, the monthly deletion process, reset on new activity, and the Large property cut to 2 months
Checked 11 November 2026. The click paths above are the ones in Google's help and developer pages, opened 11 November 2026. No step in this guide was run inside a live Analytics property or a live Tag Manager container, because both need a Google sign-in and this site does not sign in as anyone. The figures on this page were recomputed in Python 3 and are shown in the downloadable file, which was checked the same day. Google moves menu items without warning; if a path on this page no longer matches, the linked help page is the current map.