• Overview
• Use cases
• Choosing which issues to include
• Sorting
• Format
• Limitations

Export Issues to CSV

Issues can be exported as CSV from GitLab and are sent to your default notification email as an attachment.

Overview

Export Issues to CSV enables you and your team to export all the data collected from issues into a comma-separated values (CSV) file, which stores tabular data in plain text.

CSVs are a handy way of getting data from one program to another where one program cannot read the other ones normal output. Ref

CSV files can be used with any plotter or spreadsheet-based program, such as Microsoft Excel, Open Office Calc, or Google Spreadsheets.

Use cases

Among numerous use cases for exporting issues for CSV, we can name a few:

• Make a snapshot of issues for offline analysis or to communicate with other teams who may not be in GitLab
• Create diagrams, graphs, and charts from the CSV data
• Present the data in any other format for auditing or sharing reasons
• Import the issues elsewhere to a system outside of GitLab
• Long-term issues’ data analysis with multiple snapshots created along the time
• Use the long-term data to gather relevant feedback given in the issues, and improve your product based on real metrics

Choosing which issues to include

From the issues page you can narrow down which issues to export using the search bar, along with the All/Open/Closed tabs. All issues returned will be exported, including those not shown on the first page.

You will be asked to confirm the number of issues and email address for the export, after which the email will begin being prepared.

Sorting

Exported issues are always sorted by Issue ID.

Format

Data will be encoded with a comma as the column delimiter, with " used to quote fields if needed, and newlines to separate rows. The first row will be the headers, which are listed in the following table along with a description of the values:

Column	Description
Issue ID	Issue iid
URL	A link to the issue on GitLab
Title	Issue title
State	Open or Closed
Description	Issue description
Author	Full name of the issue author
Author Username	Username of the author, with the @ symbol omitted
Assignee	Full name of the issue assignee
Assignee Username	Username of the author, with the @ symbol omitted
Confidential	Yes or No
Locked	Yes or No
Due Date	Formated as YYYY-MM-DD
Created At (UTC)	Formated as YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
Updated At (UTC)	Formated as YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
Milestone	Title of the issue milestone
Weight	Issue weight
Labels	Title of any labels joined with a ,
Time Estimate	Time estimate in seconds
Time Spent	Time spent in seconds

Limitations

As the issues will be sent as an email attachment, there is a limit on how much data can be exported. Currently this limit is 20MB to ensure successful delivery across a range of email providers. If this limit is reached we suggest narrowing the search before export, perhaps by exporting open and closed issues separately.