How to export Podio data
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Podio exports one app at a time to Excel, from the app's view. The file keeps your fields, but leaves out files, images, comments, tasks and activity, and each export stops at 20,000 items. Here is how to run it, how to get the most out of it and what to do when you need everything.
How do you export a Podio app to Excel?
- Open the app and the view you want to export.
- Click the wrench icon and choose the Excel export.
- Wait for Podio's notification: large apps can take a few minutes.
- Open the file from the notification, or from your profile menu under Batch jobs.
The steps are in Podio's documentation. There's no export for a whole workspace or organization: you repeat it for each app.
Which fields end up in the file?
It depends on the view. A table view exports only the fields you selected in its options. The first view, "All items", exports every field plus metadata such as created on, created by and tags. If you want a complete sheet, start from "All items".
What if an app has more than 20,000 items?
Split it. Add a filter to the view, for example by creation date, export each range on its own and merge the files afterwards. Keep a note of the filters you used, or it's easy to miss a range.
What does the Excel export leave out?
According to Podio, images, files, tasks, comments and activity are not included. In practice you also lose:
- the links between apps: a related item becomes plain text, not something you can follow
- any automation: every export is started by hand
That's fine for a report or a quick analysis in Excel. It isn't a copy you could rebuild your work from.
How do you export everything, files and comments included?
You have two options:
- The Podio API. A developer can read items, files and comments through the API, but has to deal with its hourly rate limits, download every file on its own and keep the script running.
- A backup service. It does the same work every day and gives you a download of the whole account. Podio Backup, which we build, keeps items, files, comments and relationships, and lets you download any snapshot, app by app or all at once.
We compare the three approaches in How to back up Podio.
Before you rely on an export
Open the file and check it against Podio: count the rows, look at a few related fields and make sure nothing important sits in files or comments. An export you haven't checked is easy to trust too much.