Dashlane Data Export: Three Routes, One Of Them Safe
Available on every plan, with three formats and an unusually blunt warning about the risky one - including a direct encrypted transfer that skips the plaintext file entirely.
Exit score: 24 / 30
How hard Dashlane 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 | Runs from the app with no request or admin involvement. One point deducted because the Credential Exchange route requires recent operating system versions, so the best option is not available to everyone. |
| Format openness | 4/5 | CSV is universally readable, and Credential Exchange Protocol is a published cross-vendor standard rather than a Dashlane invention. The DASH secure file is proprietary, which is appropriate for an encrypted archive. |
| Completeness | 3/5 | The documentation names the formats but does not enumerate which item types travel in each - so whether secure notes, payment cards and IDs come out through CSV is not established from the source. |
| Not paywalled | 5/5 | Export is documented as available for all plans. No tier gate on getting your credentials out, which is the correct position and not a universal one. |
| Documentation clarity | 3/5 | Clear on formats, platforms and the security tradeoff - it warns that "CSV files aren't encrypted, and others can read them". Deducted for not listing what each format carries, which is the question people actually have. |
| Caps and expiry | 5/5 | No item limits, size ceilings, export throttles or link expiry windows are documented. For a vault of a few thousand credentials, nothing here constrains you. |
What comes out
- Your vault as a CSV, readable by every other password manager.
- A DASH secure file - Dashlane's own encrypted archive format.
- A direct encrypted transfer via Credential Exchange Protocol, on supported operating systems.
- Everything, on every plan - export is not tier-restricted.
What stays behind
- The Credential Exchange route entirely, if you are below iOS 26, macOS 26 or Android 10.
- Encryption, if you choose CSV - Dashlane states the file is readable by anyone who opens it.
- Any item type the CSV schema has no column for, which the documentation does not enumerate.
- Sharing relationships and group membership, which are account state rather than vault contents.
Password managers are a special case in this section, and it is worth saying why before the score makes sense.
Everywhere else on this site, an incomplete export is the risk. Here the risk runs the other way: the export works perfectly, and that is the problem. A file containing every password you own, in plain text, sitting in a downloads folder, is the single most dangerous object a normal person ever creates on their own computer.
So these reports score not just whether you can leave, but whether you can leave without handing your entire digital life to whoever finds the file.
On that measure Dashlane does well — not as well as Bitwarden, which offers an encrypted export and a direct transfer, but better than most of the category.
The route that avoids the file
Dashlane supports Credential Exchange Protocol: a direct, encrypted transfer of your vault to another supported password manager, with no readable export ever written to disk.
This is the correct solution to the problem, and it is a cross-vendor standard rather than a Dashlane feature — which matters, because a proprietary transfer would only move you between Dashlane products.
The constraint is version support: iOS 26 or later, macOS 26 or later, Android 10 or later, and it runs through the app rather than a browser extension. If your devices qualify, stop reading and use it. Nothing else on this page is as good.
If they do not, you are in CSV territory, and the rest of this report is about surviving that.
Dashlane's own warning
Most vendors describe CSV neutrally. Dashlane does not:
"CSV files aren't encrypted, and others can read them."
Two things about that sentence. First, it is accurate and unglamorous — no hedging, no "may present a risk". Second, Dashlane had no obligation to write it. Offering a convenient export and quietly not mentioning what it is would have been the easier path, and it is the path NordPass largely takes.
A vendor that warns you about its own feature is a vendor treating you as an adult.
What a CSV export actually requires of you
If you are exporting to CSV, treat the file as radioactive for the ten minutes it exists.
Do the whole transfer in one sitting. Export, import into the destination, verify it landed, delete. Do not export on Friday and import on Monday.
Delete it properly. Moving a file to the trash does not remove it, and cloud backup will happily sync a plaintext password list to a server before you get round to it. Empty the bin. Check whether your downloads folder is being backed up.
Never send it anywhere. Not to your own email, not to a colleague, not to a second device over a chat app. Every one of those creates copies you cannot delete.
Assume brief exposure. After the migration, change the handful of passwords that would be genuinely damaging — email, banking, your new password manager's own master password. Not because something went wrong, but because the cost of doing it is twenty minutes and the cost of being wrong is unbounded.
The DASH file, and what it is for
The third route is a DASH secure file — Dashlane's own encrypted archive.
This is a good backup format and a poor migration format, and the distinction matters. Encrypted means safe to store; proprietary means nothing else is likely to read it. If you want a copy of your vault in a drawer, DASH is the right choice. If you want your vault inside a different product next week, it is not.
As with Teamwork and Wrike in a completely different category, the archive file and the migration file are two different objects. The pattern is remarkably consistent across software.
What we could not establish
Dashlane's export documentation names the three formats and the platforms they need. It does not say what each format carries.
For a password manager that is a real gap, because vaults hold more than passwords: secure notes, payment cards, identity documents, addresses. Whether those appear in a CSV — and whether the receiving product understands them if they do — is not answered by the source, so we have not scored it as though it were.
The practical response is simple. After importing, search the new vault for a specific secure note and a specific payment card. If they are there, you are fine. If they are not, you still have Dashlane, and you have found out in time.
The verdict
24 out of 30. Available on every plan, with no caps, an honest security warning, and a transfer route that never puts your credentials in a readable file.
The three points lost on completeness and documentation are the same point twice: Dashlane explains how to export better than it explains what you get. That is a smaller failing than most products here manage.
Two products here score higher. Bitwarden at 29 offers everything Dashlane does plus an encrypted export and a documented item list, and Proton Pass at 25 offers a PGP-encrypted archive but blocks export from mobile entirely. For the difference honesty makes, compare NordPass at 19, which offers CSV alone and says considerably less about it.
Before you cancel
- Use Credential Exchange Protocol if your devices support it - it moves the vault without an unencrypted file ever existing on disk.
- If you must use CSV, do the whole transfer in one sitting and delete the file immediately afterwards.
- Empty the trash or recycle bin after deleting a CSV. A deleted file is recoverable and this one holds every password you own.
- Never email a CSV export to yourself, and never leave it in a downloads folder overnight.
- Export from the app, not a browser extension, if you are using Credential Exchange - it requires the app.
- Check that secure notes, payment cards and identity documents actually arrived at the other end; the format documentation does not confirm they travel.
- Change any password you consider critical after a CSV transfer, on the assumption the file was briefly exposed.
What we could not verify
- Which item types are included in the CSV export - passwords only, or notes, cards and IDs as well.
- Whether the DASH secure file can be imported by anything other than Dashlane.
- Whether shared items export for the recipient or only for the owner.
- Whether business plan administrators can export a whole team vault, and under what controls.
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 passwords from Dashlane?
Three routes. A CSV file, readable by any other password manager. A DASH secure file, which is Dashlane's encrypted archive. Or Credential Exchange Protocol, which transfers the vault directly to another supported app on iOS 26 and later, macOS 26 and later, or Android 10 and later. All three are available on all plans.
Is a Dashlane CSV export encrypted?
No, and Dashlane says so directly: CSV files are not encrypted and others can read them. That is the entire security profile of the format - a plain text list of every credential you own. It is the reason the encrypted transfer route exists and the reason to prefer it.
What is Credential Exchange Protocol and should I use it?
A cross-vendor standard for moving a vault between password managers as an encrypted transfer, so no readable file is ever written to disk. If your devices meet the version requirements, it is strictly the better choice - it removes the single most dangerous moment in the whole migration.
Can you export Dashlane on the free plan?
Yes. Dashlane documents export as available for all plans, so there is no upgrade required to take your credentials out. Given how central lock-in fears are to password manager choice, that is worth weighing when you pick one in the first place.
Does a Dashlane export include secure notes and payment cards?
The documentation names the formats but does not enumerate which item types each one carries, so we could not establish this from the source. Export, import into the destination, and check for your notes and cards specifically before you delete anything.
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.