Data Retention
Data retention is the GA4 setting that controls how long your user- and event-level data is kept for use in explorations. You choose either 2 months or 14 months. Crucially, this limit applies to the granular data behind custom analysis — not to the standard aggregated reports, which GA4 keeps indefinitely.
Why it matters
New GA4 properties often default to the shorter 2-month window. That's easy to miss, and it quietly caps how far back any custom exploration can reach. If you want to compare this quarter's user behaviour to the same quarter last year using an exploration, you need the 14-month setting switched on — ideally from day one.
A concrete example
Say it's June and you want to build an exploration of returning-user behaviour going back to last summer. If your property is still on the 2-month default, the data simply isn't there — the exploration returns nothing before April. Had you set retention to 14 months when you created the property, the full history would be available. The setting isn't retroactive: it governs what's kept going forward.
The common misreading
The big misunderstanding is thinking retention deletes your reports. It doesn't. Your standard reports — traffic, sources, conversions over time — survive regardless of this setting. Only the detailed exploration data expires. For history that outlasts even 14 months, the answer is the BigQuery export, which stores raw events permanently outside GA4's retention rules.
WebSignalytics keeps its own running memory of your site's signals — so the long-term context isn't lost even when GA4's exploration window expires. You get the trend, every Monday, in plain language.
See how it works