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Retention decides how long time-stamped records stay available in the dashboard before they move to an archive and are later removed. The window follows your plan. The dashboard has no retention setting to change, and the same window applies to every agent in the organization.

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What has a retention window

These record types age out on a plan-based window. Records not listed here stay until a member deletes them. A disconnected toolkit is also cleaned up on a plan-based window, and live chat notifications are removed after 30 days. Agents, flows, knowledge bases, conversation transcripts, end users, and members have no timer. They stay until you delete them, or until the organization itself is deleted. See Organization lifecycle for what happens to a deleted organization. Original values that personal data protection keeps in Mask mode follow the window you set on the Privacy page, not your plan. See Personal data protection.

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Where the dashboard shows the window

You do not set the window, but the dashboard shows it in three places.

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Audit log

On the Log tab, the info icon beside the date range picker states how many days your audit events stay in the table. The picker offers only presets that fit your window, so a Free organization sees Today, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, and All retained logs. The Export dialog adds an Include archived logs (may take longer) checkbox when archived events exist. See Search and export the audit log.

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Traces

In the Analytics Conversations drawer, a conversation older than the window shows View trace disabled. Its tooltip reads Trace expired, traces are kept for 90 days on your plan, with the number for your plan. If you open an expired trace from a saved link, the inspector reads This trace has expired. Below it, the inspector adds The conversation transcript may still be available. The transcript has no timer, so you can still read it from the Activity tab.

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Plans page

Settings → Billing → Plans lists retention as a plan feature. The Enterprise card lists Configurable data retention and its action is Contact sales. A longer window is arranged with Tars, not switched on in the dashboard. The Free and Premium cards carry a retention feature line of their own. Those lines are marketing wording. The enforced windows are the ones in the table above.

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After the window: archive, then disposal

An audit record moving from its plan-based searchable window into a seven year archive and then disposal, with a legal hold blocking disposal
When a record passes the window it leaves the live tables and moves to a cold archive. Archived audit events are kept for seven years, and archived Activity timelines and traces are kept for three years. At the end of the archive period the archived copy is removed. Only audit events come back out of the archive. Tick Include archived logs (may take longer) in the audit Export dialog and the export reaches back through the archive. Archived Activity timelines and traces are not shown in the dashboard and are not part of Activity exports.

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Holds and erasure

A legal hold stops retention from removing the records in its scope, in the live tables and in the archive. Erasure removes an end user’s personal data without waiting for a window to end, while the audit evidence of the erasure is kept. Both are explained in Erasure and legal holds.