--- title: "How to export your Todoist data" description: "Two routes out — a per-project CSV, or an account backup on Pro. What each one leaves behind, and how to keep your completed tasks, which neither includes." canonical: https://taskpocket.io/guides/export-todoist-to-another-app/ lastUpdated: 2026-09-01 --- 1. [Home](https://taskpocket.io/) 2. [Guides](https://taskpocket.io/guides/) 3. Export your Todoist data # How to export your Todoist data 1. [The quick answer](#the-quick-answer) 2. [What the CSV actually contains](#what-the-csv-actually-contains) 3. [What the backup contains, and who can use it](#what-the-backup-contains-and-who-can-use-it) 4. [Keeping your completed history](#keeping-your-completed-history) 5. [Getting the CSV into another app](#getting-the-csv-into-another-app) 6. [If you are considering TaskPocket](#if-you-are-considering-taskpocket) Todoist has two ways out and neither is a single "export everything" button. You can export one project at a time as a CSV, or — on Pro and Business — let it build account backups you can download. Both are usable; both leave things behind, and it is worth knowing which before you rely on either. ## The quick answer For one project, or a handful: open the project, click the three-dot menu at the top right, and choose Export as CSV. The file downloads immediately. Do this once per project. For the whole account, on Pro or Business: Todoist creates backups automatically on days you make changes, and keeps up to 21 of them. Download the most recent one from settings; it is a ZIP containing a CSV for each active project. For your completed tasks: neither of the above. See below, because this is the part that catches people. ## What the CSV actually contains Todoist describes the per-project export as "an exact duplicate of the original project", and for live work it very nearly is: task content, section and project descriptions, dates, times, comments and attachment links all survive. Three documented limits matter more than the vendor's phrasing suggests. Completed tasks are not included. In Todoist's own words: "Completed tasks aren't included when exporting a project as a CSV file." If your reason for exporting is to keep a record of what you did — a year of finished work, a log for invoicing, evidence for a review — this route does not do it. Recurring tasks lose their start date. Todoist gives the example plainly: a task set to recur "every year starting January 31" exports with its date changed to "every year". The rhythm survives; the anchor it was counting from does not. On a handful of tasks that is a two-minute fix. On forty, it is an afternoon and a lot of guessing about what the original date was. Import caps at 300 tasks per project. If you are moving a project back into Todoist, or into another tool that reuses the same format, anything over 300 rows will not go through in one piece. ## What the backup contains, and who can use it Backups are a Pro and Business feature. Todoist builds them automatically, keeps up to 21, and deletes the oldest as new ones arrive — so they are a rolling window rather than an archive. Inside the ZIP is a CSV per active project, carrying dates and times, descriptions, task duration, deadlines, recurring dates, and up to 500 comments per task, plus links to file attachments. What it leaves out is the same gap again, plus one more: "Completed tasks and archived projects aren't included in a backup." So the backup is a snapshot of what you are working on, not of what you have done. If you archive finished projects — which is the tidy habit, and the one most people are taught — those projects are absent from every backup you have. ## Keeping your completed history This is the part worth doing deliberately, because no export route covers it and there is no way to fix it after you have closed the account. Todoist keeps activity history for a week on the free tier and in full on Pro, and completed tasks are visible per project. The practical options, in order of how much work they are: 1. Decide you do not need it. Perfectly reasonable for most people. A completed task from eighteen months ago is rarely consulted, and pretending otherwise is how migrations stall. 2. Screenshot or print the completed view for the projects you care about, before you leave. Crude, fast, and enough for the "I need to prove I did this" case. 3. Use the API while your account is still live. Todoist has a documented REST API and completed tasks are reachable through it. This is a scripting job rather than a click, but it is the only route that gets the data as data. Whichever you pick, do it before you downgrade or close the account. A free account has one week of activity history, so downgrading first can quietly destroy the thing you were trying to keep. ## Getting the CSV into another app A CSV of tasks is the closest thing this category has to a common format, and most task managers will take one — but "takes a CSV" and "understands your CSV" are different claims, and the gap between them is where a migration goes wrong. Check the date columns first. Todoist writes dates as human strings rather than ISO dates in some columns, and recurring rules as the same text you typed. An importer that expects 2026-04-30 will silently drop every 2 weeks. Expect to redo recurrence by hand. Given the anchor is lost on export anyway, this is usually less work than trying to repair it in a spreadsheet: set the rules fresh in the new app, where you can see what they mean. Flatten before you import, not after. Sub-tasks, sections and sub-projects map differently in every app. Deciding what a Todoist section becomes — a project, a heading, or nothing — is a decision you want to make once, on purpose, rather than discover forty times. Move less than you think. A migration is the cheapest opportunity you will ever get to not carry three years of dead tasks into a new system. If a project has not moved in six months, it is a candidate for deletion rather than transport. ## If you are considering TaskPocket Worth being straight about this, since you are on our site: TaskPocket has no importer. Not from Todoist, not from anything. Moving a large list here today means retyping it, and if that is a dealbreaker — it reasonably might be — TickTick imports from six apps including Todoist and is the easier landing. What we do have is the other half: a one-click JSON export of your whole account, free on every plan, including completed tasks and not capped by the free plan's history window. That is the direction that is under our control, and it is the one we would rather be good at. See [export your data](https://taskpocket.io/features/export-your-data/). If you want the comparison itself rather than the mechanics, the honest version is at [Todoist vs TaskPocket](https://taskpocket.io/compare/taskpocket-vs-todoist/) — including the several rows where Todoist is straightforwardly the better product. By [Bohdan Stefaniuk](https://taskpocket.io/about/) Last updated 2026-09-01 ## Sources 1. [Todoist — Import or export a project as a CSV file (and what it omits)](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/import-or-export-a-project-as-a-csv-file-in-todoist-YC8YvN) checked 2026-09-01 2. [Todoist — Download or restore backups (Pro and Business)](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/download-or-restore-backups-in-todoist-ywaJeQbN) checked 2026-09-01 3. [Todoist — Introduction to recurring dates](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/introduction-to-recurring-dates-YUYVJJAV) checked 2026-09-01 If you land here on the way to somewhere else, that is fine — this page is written to be useful whichever app you pick. ## Related reading - [Todoist vs TaskPocket (2026) — an honest comparison](https://taskpocket.io/compare/taskpocket-vs-todoist/) — Todoist is bigger, has reminders and runs everywhere. TaskPocket is smaller, has no AI and no subscription. Where each one actually wins, with sources. - [Export your data — one click, one JSON file, free](https://taskpocket.io/features/export-your-data/) — 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. - [Todoist deadline vs due date — which to use, and when](https://taskpocket.io/guides/todoist-deadline-vs-due-date/) — Todoist's date and deadline answer different questions. What each one actually controls, which plan you need, and how to decide which a task wants. - [Task vs project](https://taskpocket.io/glossary/task-vs-project/) — A task is one step. A project is any outcome that takes more than one. The test is whether you can start it without deciding anything first.