ClickUp Data Export: A Long List and an Unanswered Question
The field list is generous and the format is not. CSV only, from a product built on deep hierarchy — and the documentation will not tell you which plans can export at all.
Exit score: 17 / 30
How hard ClickUp makes it to leave with your data intact, scored against 6 criteria from the vendor's own published documentation. How we score.
| Criterion | Score | What the documentation says |
|---|---|---|
| Self-service | 4/5 | Export runs from inside the product at Space, Folder, Subfolder or List level. One point deducted because the documentation states "feature availability and limits vary by plan and user role" without specifying how. |
| Format openness | 3/5 | CSV only. It is open and readable, but it is a flat format, and ClickUp is built on a Space, Folder, List, Task, Subtask hierarchy that a single table cannot represent. |
| Completeness | 3/5 | The field list is genuinely long — comments, assigned comments, attachments, checklists, time estimated and time spent are all named. Custom fields and task history are not mentioned either way. |
| Not paywalled | 2/5 | Unresolvable from the documentation. "Feature availability and limits vary by plan and user role" is the only statement, so you cannot establish before signing up whether your plan can export. |
| Documentation clarity | 2/5 | Lists included fields carefully but never states exclusions, and defers the plan question to a link rather than answering it. An export guide that does not say what is missing is the hardest kind to plan against. |
| Caps and expiry | 3/5 | No caps, expiry or download limits are documented. Scored as unknown rather than absent, because the same page says limits vary by plan without naming any. |
What comes out
- Task ID, task link, task type, custom ID, name and description.
- Status, date created, due date and start date.
- Parent ID and subtask IDs — the hierarchy as references, if not as structure.
- Attachments, assignees, tags and priority.
- List name, folder name and path, and space name.
- Checklists, comments and assigned comments.
- Time estimated, time spent and rolled-up time.
- Dates in both Unix format and plain text, which is a genuinely thoughtful touch.
What stays behind
- Working hierarchy — Spaces, Folders and Lists arrive as text columns, not as structure another tool can rebuild.
- Custom fields, which the documented field list does not mention.
- Task history and the activity log, likewise unmentioned.
- Views, dashboards, automations and everything else you configured rather than typed.
- Anything your plan or user role does not permit — which the documentation does not let you determine in advance.
This is the lowest score on the site so far, and the interesting thing is why. It is not because the export is thin — the field list is one of the longest we have documented.
It is because after reading the documentation carefully, we still cannot tell you whether you will be able to export at all.
The sentence that costs it most
ClickUp's export documentation says: "Feature availability and limits vary by plan and user role."
Then it links elsewhere rather than saying which plans, which roles, or which limits.
Every product has plan differences, and gating features by tier is entirely normal. What is unusual is not answering the question on the page where it is raised, because it makes the one thing a prospective customer most needs to establish — can I get my data back out of this, on the plan I am about to buy? — unresolvable in advance.
This matters more for ClickUp than it would for most products. We recommend ClickUp elsewhere on this site specifically for price-sensitive teams, often on the free tier, precisely the users most likely to be affected by an undocumented tier restriction and least able to buy their way past it.
The practical response is simple and should be done in week one: run a test export from a single List and see what happens. Twenty minutes now answers a question that is otherwise answered on the worst possible day.
The field list is genuinely good
Credit where it is due, because on content ClickUp does better than most.
The documented CSV export carries task ID and link, task type and custom ID, name and description, status, created, due and start dates, parent ID and subtask IDs, attachments, assignees, tags, priority, List name, Folder name and path, Space name, checklists, comments, assigned comments, time estimated, time spent and rolled-up time.
Comments are in there. That alone puts ClickUp ahead of Trello's CSV, which drops them entirely. Assigned comments — comments that are also tasks — come through as their own field, which is a thoughtful detail.
Time tracking comes out, including rolled-up time. For an agency that bills hourly and needs its own historical record of what was spent on what, that is the difference between an export and a liability.
And dates arrive in both Unix format and plain text, which is the kind of small engineering courtesy that suggests somebody who has actually had to import a CSV was involved in the design.
The format is the wrong shape for the product
ClickUp's identity is hierarchy. Workspace, Space, Folder, List, Task, Subtask — six levels, which is more than almost anything else in its category and the main thing people either love or regret about it.
CSV is one table.
The export handles this as well as CSV can. Space, Folder and List names come through as columns, and Parent ID and Subtask IDs preserve relationships as references. So the information is there in principle.
What is not there is structure another product can act on. Importing that CSV somewhere else gives you a flat list of tasks with some text columns describing where they used to live. Reconstructing six levels of hierarchy from ID references is a data-processing job, not an import.
A JSON export would solve this and is not offered. The deeper the hierarchy you build, the more of your configuration work is stranded — which means the teams who got the most out of ClickUp's distinctive feature are the ones who lose most on the way out.
The silences
Two omissions from the field list are worth flagging, and neither is stated as an exclusion — they are simply absent.
Custom fields. ClickUp is a product people configure heavily; custom fields are a headline capability. They do not appear in the documented export field list. That may mean they are excluded, or it may mean the list is not exhaustive. We do not know, and the difference is enormous for anyone who has put real data in them.
Task history. The activity log — who changed what, when, from what to what — is not mentioned. Most products in this category do not export history either, so this is unsurprising, but it is unstated rather than declined.
Both go in the unverified section above rather than the score, because guessing at them would make this report look more certain than the evidence supports.
How to work with a C
A 17 is not a reason to avoid ClickUp. It remains excellent value at $7 a user, and we recommend it for teams with someone to own the configuration.
It is a reason to do three things:
Test the export in week one, while you have nothing invested. You will learn what your plan permits, whether custom fields come out, and whether attachments are files or links — all questions the documentation leaves open.
Keep the hierarchy shallow. This is good advice anyway, and it is also exit insurance: the less structure you build, the less of it is stranded in a flat CSV.
Do not put anything irreplaceable in a custom field until you have confirmed custom fields export.
The verdict
17 out of 30. Better content than the score suggests, undermined by a documentation gap that makes it impossible to plan.
If ClickUp published which plans and roles can export, and confirmed whether custom fields are included, this score would move several points on the strength of the existing export alone. The data is largely there. What is missing is the ability to know that in advance — and in a report about whether you can leave, being unable to answer the question is itself the finding.
Before you cancel
- Run a test export from one List first, before you depend on it, and see what your plan and role actually allow.
- Open the CSV and check whether your custom fields are present — the documentation does not say.
- Export Space by Space rather than assuming one export covers the workspace.
- Record your hierarchy separately — a screenshot of the sidebar is a legitimate artefact here.
- Check whether the attachments column contains files or links to files, and retrieve anything held only as a link.
- Confirm subtask relationships survived, using the Parent ID and Subtask IDs columns.
- If export is unavailable on your plan or role, resolve that before you cancel, not after.
What we could not verify
- Which plans can export, and which user roles — the documentation says availability varies but does not say how.
- Whether custom fields are included in the CSV, since they appear nowhere in the documented field list.
- Whether task history or the activity log can be exported by any route.
- Whether the attachments column contains files or references, which changes what you have once the account closes.
These are open questions, not criticisms. Where a vendor does not publish an answer we leave it unscored rather than guessing, and the score is calculated only from what is documented.
Questions people ask
How do you export data from ClickUp?
From inside the product, at Space, Folder, Subfolder or List level, as a CSV file. ClickUp's documentation notes that "feature availability and limits vary by plan and user role", so whether you can run an export at all depends on your subscription and your permissions in ways the page does not enumerate.
What does a ClickUp export include?
A long list: task ID and link, name, description, status, created and due dates, parent and subtask IDs, attachments, assignees, tags, priority, the List, Folder and Space names, checklists, comments, assigned comments, and time estimated, spent and rolled up. Dates come in both Unix and plain text.
Does ClickUp export custom fields?
The documentation does not say, in either direction. Custom fields do not appear in the published field list, which is not the same as being excluded. Because ClickUp is a product people configure heavily, this is the single most important thing to establish with a test export before you rely on it.
Can you export ClickUp as JSON?
Not through the documented export feature, which produces CSV. That matters more in ClickUp than in most products, because a flat table cannot represent a Space, Folder, List, Task, Subtask hierarchy — the names come through as columns, but the structure has to be rebuilt.
Is ClickUp export available on the free plan?
We could not establish this from the documentation, which states only that availability varies by plan and user role. If you are choosing ClickUp partly because of its generous free tier, this is worth confirming with ClickUp directly before you commit years of work to it.
Where this information comes from
Product details change often. Each item below links to the primary source we checked, so you can confirm anything that matters to your decision.
Vendors change their export tooling without announcing it. If something here no longer matches what you see in the product, tell us and we will re-check it.