How to Export Your Goodreads Data (Step-by-Step)

Once you have the file, drop it into Nocturn's free unwrapper to see what nine years of it actually add up to. No account, nothing uploaded.

Whether you're switching to a new reading tracker or just want a backup of your data, exporting your Goodreads library is something every reader should know how to do. The good news: Goodreads does let you export everything. The bad news: the option is buried deep in the settings.

Here's exactly how to do it, step by step.

Step 1: Log in to Goodreads on desktop

The export feature is only available on the desktop website, not the mobile app. Open goodreads.com in your browser and sign in to your account.

Step 2: Navigate to My Books

Click on "My Books" in the top navigation bar. This takes you to your full library view with all your shelves.

Step 3: Find the Import/Export page

This is the part most people miss. At the bottom of the left sidebar on the My Books page, you'll see a small link that says "Import and export". Click it. Alternatively, you can go directly to goodreads.com/review/import.

Step 4: Click "Export Library"

On the Import/Export page, you'll see a button at the top that says "Export Library". Click it. Goodreads will start generating your CSV file. Depending on the size of your library, this can take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

Step 5: Download the CSV

Once the export is ready, a download link will appear. Click it to save the goodreads_library_export.csv file to your computer.

What's in the export file?

The CSV contains everything Goodreads knows about your reading history:

• Book titles and authors
• ISBN and ISBN13 identifiers
• Your rating (1-5 stars)
• Your shelves (read, currently-reading, to-read, plus any custom shelves)
• Date read and date added
• Your review text
• Page count, publisher, and year published

This is your data, and it's portable. You can open it in any spreadsheet application, or import it into another reading tracker.

What to do with your export

Once you have the CSV, you have options. Many reading trackers accept Goodreads CSV imports directly. In Nocturn, for example, you can drop your CSV file into the import tool and your entire library, including ratings, shelves, and reviews, will be mapped and imported in under a minute. The import preserves your reading dates, so your stats and history stay intact.

Even if you're not switching trackers right away, having a backup of your reading data is good practice. Your library represents years of reading, and you shouldn't rely on any single platform to keep it safe.

A few things to watch out for

Custom shelves: Your custom Goodreads shelves will export, but not every tracker maps them the same way. Check how your new tracker handles shelf mapping before importing.

Private reviews: If you marked reviews as private on Goodreads, they'll still appear in your CSV export, since the export is for your own use.

Reading dates: If you didn't log reading dates on Goodreads, those fields will be empty. There's no way to recover that data after the fact.

Multiple editions: Goodreads sometimes has duplicate entries for different editions. Your export will reflect whichever edition you added to your shelf. Most import tools use ISBN matching to find the correct book.

Exporting your data is a two-minute task that gives you full control over your reading history. Whether you end up importing it somewhere new or just keeping it as a backup, it's worth doing today.