Exporting everything from Raindrop, and what to do with the file next

Raindrop's own export sits under Settings, then Backups, and it offers three formats: HTML, CSV or TXT. The process takes a couple of minutes and needs no paid plan. What matters more than the click path is what each format actually holds once you have it, and what is worth doing with the file afterward, because an export from a links tool is links and metadata. It is not the pages themselves.

This covers the exact steps as Raindrop documents them, what is inside each format, one limitation worth knowing before you treat an export as a full backup, and what to do with the file once it is sitting in your Downloads folder.

How do you export your bookmarks from Raindrop?

A full account export runs from the web app rather than the mobile apps, and Raindrop builds the file in the background instead of downloading it straight away.

1. Open Raindrop.io in a browser and sign in. Full-account export is not available from the iOS or Android apps.
2. Go to Settings, then Backups. This is its own section, separate from any individual collection.
3. Click Create New. Raindrop assembles the file rather than handing it to you immediately.
4. Wait for the email, then download the file from the same Backups page. This one export covers, in Raindrop's own words, all your bookmarks, collections, tags, highlights and notes.

Raindrop's own export documentation covers this process along with the collection-level and selection-level options below.

Can you export just one collection?

Yes, and it is quicker than the full backup if that is all you actually need.

A single collection. Open the collection and click Export, then choose a format. This skips the email step and downloads straight away.

A handful of bookmarks. Select the individual items you want, then click Export in the toolbar that appears. Useful for pulling a dozen links out of a much larger collection without touching the rest.

Which export format should you choose: HTML, CSV or TXT?

The three are not interchangeable, and picking the wrong one usually means doing the export again later.

HTML is what Raindrop calls the most universal option. It writes a Netscape Bookmarks file, the same format browsers have used to import and export bookmarks since the 1990s. Pick this if you are moving into a browser, or into any tool that specifically asks for a bookmarks.html file.

CSV is built for spreadsheets, and it is the format that keeps your folder structure intact. Each row carries a column with the bookmark's full collection path, nested levels separated by a forward slash with a space on either side, for example "Archive / Job Search" for a two-level nest. Pick this if the destination can read a folder or collection column and you want that nesting to survive the move. It also carries two separate text fields the other formats drop: your own note on a bookmark, and the excerpt Raindrop pulled from the page automatically. Real exports usually carry far more excerpts than notes, since a note only exists if you typed one.

TXT is the narrowest option: a plain list of URLs and nothing else. No titles, no folders, no dates. Only worth picking if the destination genuinely wants nothing but the raw links.

What is actually in the file?

Worth being precise about this before treating an export as a full backup. A Raindrop export, in any of its three formats, contains links and the metadata Raindrop stored about them: title, URL, collection, tags, dates, and either a note or an excerpt. It does not contain the pages themselves. There is no saved copy of the article text, and no guarantee the link still resolves a year later.

There is one further gap specific to the full-account backup: it excludes any files you uploaded directly into Raindrop, such as a PDF or an image added rather than linked. To bring those across too, open All Bookmarks in the web app and use Export, then ZIP, which downloads the original files across every collection. That is a separate step from the Settings, then Backups export, and easy to miss if you only run the one export and assume it caught everything.

What should you actually do with the file?

Three things worth doing, and none require deciding on a destination app first.

Keep it as a backup, regardless of what you use next. An HTML or CSV file sitting in a folder you control costs nothing to make and outlives whatever happens to Raindrop's own servers. Do this even with no immediate plan for it.

Move it into another links tool that reads the same format. Most bookmark managers and browsers accept a Netscape Bookmarks HTML file directly, which is the reason to pick that format if you are staying inside the bookmarks-list category of tool.

Bring it somewhere that shows the pages rather than lists them. If a flat or nested list of links was the real problem, the CSV export is the input a visual library needs, because it is the one format that keeps your collection structure attached to each link. Muse reads a Raindrop CSV export directly: the URL, title, tags, note or excerpt, and the collection path, which it rebuilds as nested collections rather than flattening everything into one list. It is a straightforward import, not a transformation. What Raindrop stored about a link is what Muse ends up holding too.

Whichever route you take, the file itself is worth having regardless. It costs a couple of minutes to create, and the only bad outcome is not having one the day you actually need it.