Reports API
Programmatic access to Gmail audit activity.Suited to an integration that collects or queries events through an API.
Architecture comparison
Reports API and BigQuery expose Gmail events, but they serve different operating models.
The choice depends on access pattern, volume, investigation window, query cost and existing tooling. Neither source can reconstruct evidence that Google did not record.
BigQuery export
Copies Gmail log events into a BigQuery dataset.Suited to SQL search, larger volumes, joins and repeated analysis.
Decision questions
Access model
Will an application call an API, or will analysts work in SQL?
Cost control
Do BigQuery queries use partitions, explicit columns, dry runs and maximumBytesBilled?
Retention
Is the required time window present in the selected source and configuration?
Correlation
Which identifiers connect these events to SMTP and application logs?