--- title: "Export your data — one click, one JSON file, free" description: "Your tasks, projects, sections, checklists and notes in a readable JSON file, on any plan. Here is exactly what is in it, and the four things it does not keep." canonical: https://taskpocket.io/features/export-your-data/ lastUpdated: 2026-09-01 --- 1. [Home](https://taskpocket.io/) 2. [Features](https://taskpocket.io/features/) 3. Export your data # Leaving should be one click, not a support ticket Settings → Account → Export data gives you a JSON file of your projects, sections, tasks, checklists, notes and completed history. It is free on every plan, there is no request form and no waiting period, and it is not capped by the free plan’s 14-day history limit. It is a readable archive rather than a re-importable backup. By [Bohdan Stefaniuk](https://taskpocket.io/about/) Last updated 2026-09-01 ## Why this deserves a page Export is the feature nobody uses and everybody should check before they start, because it is the only thing standing between “I chose this app” and “I am stuck in this app”. Years of tasks are a record of what you did, and a product that makes them awkward to retrieve has quietly made the decision to leave expensive. The common failure is not a missing button. It is a button that is a paid feature, or one that produces something you cannot read, or a “request your data” form that arrives by email in 30 days. The test is whether you can get your data out right now, on the plan you are on, without asking anyone. ## What is in the file One JSON file, named for the day you took it, downloaded straight from the browser. On iPhone it goes to the share sheet. Inside: - Projects — name, description, the area they belong to, their deadline, and when each was created and completed - Sections within each project - Tasks — title, notes, start date, deadline, the project and section they sit in, and their repeat rule - Checklist items on each task, with their state - Completed and cancelled tasks, with the dates they were completed or cancelled It is indented and human-readable. You can open it in a text editor and understand it without a tool, which is the property that actually matters in ten years when the tool has gone. ## Free, and not quietly trimmed There is no plan check on the export. It is not a Premium feature, not a retention lever, and not something that appears when you try to cancel. One detail worth stating because it cuts the other way from how these things usually go: the free plan shows the last 14 days of completed tasks in the Logbook, but the export applies no such cutoff. A free account exports its whole completed history, including the part the app will not show it. ## What it does not keep An archive, not a backup. Four specific losses, and it is better that you read them here than discover them later: - Repeat rules become sentences. A rule is written out as English — every 2 weeks on Mon, every month on the last day — rather than as structured fields. Readable, but not something a machine can reconstruct exactly. - An empty area vanishes. Areas are not exported as objects; an area is a name attached to a project. An area with no projects in it is not in the file, and area ordering is not either. - Notes become plain text. Formatting and links in a task’s notes are flattened to their text. - Nothing has an id. Relationships are expressed by name, so two projects with the same name are ambiguous in the file. Trashed tasks are also excluded, which is intentional — the trash is already the place for things you deleted. ## How this compares Export is one of the better-behaved corners of this market: the major apps all have one, and only Todoist's whole-account backup sits behind a paid plan. The differences are in the formats offered and in whether you can get the file immediately. *Getting your data out of four task apps* | Feature | Todoist | Things 3 | Apple Reminders | TaskPocket | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | An export you can trigger yourself, right now | Yes 1 | Partial 2 | Unknown | Yes 3 | | The whole account in one file | Partial 4 | Partial 5 | Unknown | Yes | | Completed tasks included | No 6 | Unknown | Unknown | Yes 7 | | Repeat rules survive intact | No 8 | Unknown | Unknown | No 9 | | More than one file format | Yes 10 | Yes 11 | Unknown | No 12 | | Import from a file | Yes 13 | Unknown | Unknown | No 14 | 1. One project at a time, from the project menu. 2. The Things database itself, copied from your own Library folder or iOS Diagnostics, plus print-to-PDF. No JSON or CSV. 3. Settings → Account → Export data. The whole account. 4. Pro and Business get automatic backups: one ZIP holding a CSV per active project. Manual export is per project. 5. The database holds everything, but it is a raw SQLite bundle rather than an export. 6. Neither route has them: “Completed tasks aren’t included when exporting a project as a CSV file”, and backups exclude completed tasks and archived projects too. 7. And not capped by the free plan’s 14-day Logbook window. 8. Todoist: a recurring task’s start date is dropped — “every year starting January 31” exports as “every year”. 9. Exported as an English sentence, not as fields. 10. CSV, and project templates. 11. SQLite, or PDF. 12. JSON only. No CSV, no Markdown, no ICS. 13. CSV import, up to 300 tasks per project. 14. TaskPocket has no import of any kind yet. Every unknown above is a cell where the vendor does not document the answer plainly and this site will not guess. Apple is the largest gap — it publishes extensively about Reminders and almost nothing about getting data out of it — and Cultured Code document the route out without documenting what survives it. Todoist is the useful comparison, and it splits: its CSV is a better interchange format than our JSON and it can import one, while exporting one project at a time without completed tasks is a worse archive than a single file with your whole history in it. Note neither product survives the round trip with repeats intact. The place TaskPocket is clearly behind is the last row: there is no importer. Getting out is one click; getting in is copy and paste. If you have a large list somewhere else, that is the real cost of moving, and it is worth weighing before you start. ## What this doesn't do - JSON only. There is no CSV, Markdown or calendar export. - The file is not re-importable — not into TaskPocket and not into anything else without writing a script. Repeat rules in particular are prose, not data. - An area containing no projects does not appear in the export, and area ordering is not preserved. - Notes are exported as plain text; formatting and links are lost. - There is no import from any other app, so this is a one-way door in the direction that favours you and not us. - No scheduled or automatic backups. Exporting is something you do, not something that happens. ## Questions people ask ### Is export free, or is it a paid feature? Free, on every plan. There is no plan check on it. You can create an account, add nothing, export an empty file, and never pay — the point is that the door is open before you commit anything to the room. ### What format is the export? A single indented JSON file, named for the date. It contains projects, sections, tasks, checklist items, notes, dates and completed history. There is no CSV or Markdown option today. ### Can I import the file back into TaskPocket? No. It is an archive rather than a backup: repeat rules are written as English sentences instead of structured fields, and nothing carries an id, so it cannot be reconstructed exactly. There is also no import from Todoist, Things 3 or Apple Reminders yet. ### Does the free plan export only the last 14 days of completed tasks? No. The 14-day limit applies to what the Logbook displays on the free plan, not to the export. The export includes your full completed history regardless of plan. ### What happens to my data if I delete my account? It is removed immediately rather than retained for a grace period, so export first if you want a copy. There is no cooling-off window in which support can restore it. ## Sources 1. [Todoist — Import or export a project as a CSV file (and what it leaves out)](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/import-or-export-a-project-as-a-csv-file-in-todoist-YC8YvN) checked 2026-09-01 2. [TaskPocket — Privacy policy (what deleting the account removes)](https://taskpocket.io/privacy/) checked 2026-09-01 Export is free on every plan and needs no card. So is deleting the account, which removes everything immediately. ## Related reading - [Projects and areas — things that end, and things that do not](https://taskpocket.io/features/projects-and-areas/) — A project is something you finish. An area is something you keep doing. How the two work in TaskPocket, what the free plan allows, and how other apps model it. - [About — why I built TaskPocket](https://taskpocket.io/about/) — Why I built TaskPocket: I moved to a Windows laptop and the task app I'd used for five years couldn't come with me. Web and iPhone today, Android next. - [Recurring tasks that survive real life](https://taskpocket.io/features/recurring-tasks/) — Nth weekday, the last business day, stop after ten, skip one, and repeats counted from the day you finish. What each app can express, with sources. - [No AI in TaskPocket — and why that is deliberate](https://taskpocket.io/no-ai/) — No assistant, no summariser, no model reading your list. The date parser is a grammar, not an LLM. What that buys you, and what it costs you.