The export format

An export is a zip you can use without Simplist. This page documents it field by field, so that a script, another tool, or a person years from now can get everything out of one.

What is in the zip

A single-workspace export (Data → Download export) holds:

• simplist.json: the whole workspace. This is the only file an import reads.
• files/: the bytes of every attached file, named <file id>-<original name>.
• csv/: one spreadsheet per model, for reading. An import ignores these.
• README.md: a short description of the above, with each model’s record count.

An all-workspaces export (Download all workspaces) has a manifest.json at the root listing each workspace (id, name, is_personal), and the layout above inside a workspaces/<id>/ folder for each.

simplist.json

Dates are RFC 3339 timestamps. Ids are UUIDs.

{
  "user":   { "id", "email", "email_verified", "created_at", "updated_at" },
  "models": [ Model, … ]
}

A Model:

A field: id, name, slug (a short identifier unique in the model), field_type (such as text, number, date, select, relation, rich_doc, file), related_model_id (the model a relation points at), position (its order on the form), and options (a select field’s choices, as [{ "label", "color" }]).

A document (record): id, created_at, updated_at, and:

• field_values: [{ "field_id", "value" }]. Every value is a string: numbers and dates as text (2026-03-11, 2026-03-11T09:00), a multi-select as a JSON array of labels, rich text as a Lexical editor document in JSON (the CSV gives its plain text).
• relations: [{ "field_id", "target_document_id" }], one entry per link.
• files: [{ "file_id", "field_id", "filename", "mime_type", "path" }], where path is the file’s location inside the zip.

The spreadsheets

Each csv/<plural name>.csv has the columns id, created_at, updated_at, then one per field in form order. A relation field has two columns: the linked records’ names, and beside it <field> (ids) with their ids. A file field lists paths into files/. Several values in one cell are separated by ; . The files are UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, every cell is quoted, and rows end with CRLF, which every spreadsheet app reads.

Restoring

Data → Import restores a zip into the workspace you are in (an all-workspaces zip creates fresh workspaces). Data → Check an export runs the same import and undoes it, to prove a zip restores without changing anything. See Import, export and backups.