# Weekly legal hold notices and acknowledgment tracking

> Every Monday, tell everyone under legal hold what they must preserve, chase anyone who has not replied, and keep a dated record you can show a court.

- Workflow type: agent
- Services: Google Vault, Gmail, Google Sheets
- Categories: Operations
- Published: 2026-08-14

## What it does

- Checks every open legal matter each Monday and builds the current list of people whose data is being preserved
- Emails anyone who has never been told, explaining in plain language that they must keep their email, files and chat messages
- Watches for replies and marks people as confirmed, sending a firmer reminder to anyone still silent after a week
- Records every notice and every confirmation in a dated spreadsheet, so you can prove exactly who was told and when
- Sends the legal owner a short weekly summary of anyone still unconfirmed after 14 days

## What you'll need

- A Google Workspace account with permission to view your organisation's legal matters and holds
- A Gmail account that sends the notices, ideally a shared legal or compliance mailbox rather than a personal one
- A Google Sheet used as the tracking log, set up once with columns for custodian, matter, notice date and acknowledgment date
- The email address of the legal owner who should receive the weekly summary

## Prompt

Every Monday at 8am, check that every person whose data is under legal hold in Google Vault has actually received a preservation notice and acknowledged it. The point of this workflow is the paper trail that proves notice was given, so dated, accurate records matter more than speed.

Start in Google Vault. Use List Matters and keep only matters in an open state, skipping anything closed or deleted. For each open matter, use List Holds to get its holds, then List Hold Accounts on each hold to collect the accounts whose data is being preserved. Combine these into a current custodian list per matter, de-duplicating anyone who appears in more than one hold on the same matter.

Read my acknowledgment tracking sheet in Google Sheets with Get Values. This sheet is the acknowledgment ledger. It holds one row per custodian per matter, with columns for custodian email, matter name, notice date and acknowledgment date. If the sheet is empty apart from its header row, treat every custodian as not yet notified.

For any custodian on an open matter with no notice on record, send a legal hold notice with Gmail Send a Message. Name the matter, explain in plain language that they have a duty to preserve their email, their Drive files and their chat messages relating to it, tell them not to delete or edit anything, and ask them to reply to the message to confirm they have read and understood it. Keep the subject line consistent and include the matter name in it, so replies can be found reliably later.

For anyone notified more than seven days ago with no acknowledgment logged, first use Gmail List Messages with a search query scoped to that custodian and the notice subject line to look for a reply. If a reply exists, treat them as acknowledged and record the date of that reply. If there is no reply, send an escalating reminder that restates the duty to preserve and notes the date of the original notice.

Log every notice sent and every acknowledgment detected back to the sheet with Append Values, capturing custodian, matter name, notice date and acknowledgment date, so there is a defensible paper trail an auditor or opposing counsel can inspect.

Apply these rules strictly. Never send a repeat notice to someone whose acknowledgment is already logged. Skip closed matters entirely. Reply detection is best effort, so if you are unsure whether a message is a genuine confirmation rather than an out of office or an unrelated thread, leave the person unacknowledged instead of recording a confirmation that did not happen.

Finally, email a short summary to the legal owner with Gmail Send a Message, listing anyone still unacknowledged 14 days after their first notice, grouped by matter, along with how many notices and acknowledgments were recorded this run. Frame this summary as a prompt for a human to chase the outstanding people, not as legal advice.

## How to customize

- Change the timing, for example running it daily instead of weekly while litigation is active
- Adjust the chase windows, such as reminding after 3 days instead of 7 or escalating to the legal owner after 30 days instead of 14
- Reword the notice itself so it matches the language your counsel prefers, or change who receives the weekly summary

## FAQ

### Doesn't Google Vault already notify people when they are put on legal hold?

No. Vault preserves data quietly in the background and never tells the person their data is being held. Courts generally expect custodians to be told about their duty to preserve and expect that notice to be documented, which is the gap this fills.

### How does it know when someone has acknowledged the notice?

The notice asks people to simply reply, and the workflow then searches the sending mailbox for a reply from that person before chasing them again. Reply detection is best effort, so if someone confirms verbally or in another channel you can record it in the tracking sheet yourself and it will be respected.

### Could someone be sent the same notice twice?

No. Once a confirmation is recorded against a person for a matter, they are never contacted about it again. The tracking sheet is the single source of truth for who has been notified and who has confirmed.

### What happens when a matter is closed?

Closed matters are skipped entirely, so nobody receives a notice or a reminder about a case that is already over. Only matters in an open state are checked.

### Is this a replacement for a dedicated legal hold tool?

It covers the notice and acknowledgment tracking that Vault itself does not do, which is the main reason teams buy a separate hold product. The wording of your notice should still be reviewed by your counsel, and the weekly summary is a prompt for a human to chase people, not legal advice.

Use this prompt in General Input: https://www.generalinput.com/prompts/weekly-legal-hold-notices-and-acknowledgment-tracking