Your account and your data
Export your things
Everything you have written can be exported at any time, on any plan.
Why you'd care
Two reasons. A backup you control, and the knowledge that you are not locked in. Both matter for something you are asked to put years of your life into.
The formats
| Format | Best for |
|---|---|
| Markdown | Reading elsewhere, or moving into another notes app |
| Plain text | Maximum compatibility, minimum structure |
| CSV | Spreadsheets and analysis |
| JSON | Programmatic use, and the most complete |
| Reading on paper, or handing something fixed to somebody |
Export from Settings Data Export data.
PDF is print. Choosing it opens a print view rather than downloading a file, and you save as PDF from there. It is the same route as Print on a single list. See share outside Twos.
Markdown and plain text can come as a zip. Instead of one long file, you can get one file per list bundled into a .zip, and choose which lists go in. That is the format to take if you are moving into another notes app, because it arrives as a folder of notes rather than one document to split up by hand.
Choosing what goes in it
You do not have to take everything. Three controls narrow the export, and they combine.
A date range. All time, or the last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days, or a custom start and end date you pick. Useful for pulling one project's period out, or for taking a monthly backup without re-downloading your whole history each time.
Which kind of list. All lists, or only your day lists, or only your regular lists. Days-only gives you a clean journal. Regular-only leaves the daily noise behind.
Which individual lists. With Markdown or plain text and one-file-per-list turned on, you choose exactly which lists go into the zip rather than taking all of them.
Then a set of toggles for what rides along:
| Toggle | Default |
|---|---|
| Archived lists | On |
| Hidden lists | Off |
| Completed and canceled things | On |
| Date created | Off |
| Last edited | Off |
| Completed or canceled date | Off |
| Bundle photo files | Off, zip only |
The date toggles are Markdown and plain text only. CSV and JSON always carry those fields, because the whole point of those formats is completeness.
What comes out
Your things, their text, types, completion state, lists and dates.
Going further
Photos are links unless you ask for the files. In every format the images are URLs by default. The zip export can bundle the real photo files alongside your things and point the export at those local copies instead, which is the only option that produces a genuinely self-contained archive.
Export is not a sync. It is a snapshot at the moment you take it.
Import shows you what it found before it commits. Pasting or dropping a file in gives you a preview of every list and thing it parsed, and you tick which ones to bring in. Nothing is written until you confirm, so an import that read your file wrongly costs you a look rather than a cleanup. The same formats go both ways. See Settings Data Import data.
Settings that change this
- Settings Data Export data exports your data.
- Settings Data Import data imports Markdown, text, CSV or JSON.
Tips
- Take a JSON export once a year and put it somewhere durable. It costs a minute.
- Taking a backup you might actually read later? Take the zip with photos bundled. JSON is complete but nobody reads JSON.
- Export before any big cleanup. Trash covers accidents, but an export covers decisions you regret.