Exporting Sofa Data

Sofa has two ways to get your data out, and they serve different purposes.

Sofa Backup (.sofa4bk files)

This is the most complete option. It’s a full copy of the entire database — every item, list, custom property, note, reminder, image, date, and relationship is preserved. You can import a backup to restore everything exactly as it was, and you can set up automatic backups to iCloud Drive or your device on a schedule.

Use this when you want a true safety net or you’re moving Sofa to a new device.

Export All Data

This produces a single .zip containing your library as spreadsheets and folders — designed to be opened in Numbers, Excel, or any tool that reads CSV files. It’s the right choice when you want to read or analyze your library outside of Sofa, or hand it off to another service.

When you export, Sofa builds a folder structured like this:

• items.csv — every item in your library as one row, including which list and section it lives in, its category, all dates, your notes, tags, links, custom properties, and (for podcasts) your per-show playback settings.
• categories.csv — your category list (Movies, TV Shows, Books, plus any custom ones you’ve made).
• Planner files — planner_events.csv, planner_tasks.csv, planner_notes.csv, people.csv, reminders.csv.
• Travel & money — locations.csv, itinerary_items.csv, expense_scenarios.csv, expense_items.csv.
• Attachments & images — attachments.csv + an /attachments/ folder, and images.csv + an /images/ folder containing every cover image and attachment file.
• README.md — a guide to what’s in the zip and how the columns are laid out.

Dates are written in ISO 8601 format with timezones, currency uses decimal numbers with a separate ISO 4217 column, and locations use separate latitude/longitude columns. The point is that you can sort, filter, and chart your data without fighting the format.

What’s not in the zip

A few things are intentionally left out because they don’t translate to a flat spreadsheet:

• Empty lists (lists with no items) and list-level tags — tags only appear on the items they’re attached to.
• Podcast / audiobook chapter data and chapter-only cover images.

If you need any of this preserved, use a Sofa Backup (.sofa4bk) — it captures everything for round-trip.

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How to Export Your Data

Step 1

Tap the ••• button in the top right of the Lists tab, then tap “Settings”.

Step 2

Scroll down and tap “Data Management”.

Step 3

Tap “Export All Data”. Sofa shows a summary of what’s about to be exported, grouped by Library, Planner, Travel & Money, and Media.

Step 4

Tap Export. Sofa works through your library and reports progress as it goes. Large libraries with lots of attachments can take a minute or two.

Step 5

When the export is done, tap Save Export. On iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro this opens the share sheet so you can save the zip to Files, AirDrop it to another device, or email it to yourself. On Mac, it opens a Finder save panel so you can pick where the zip lands.

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What can I do with my exported data?

Open items.csv in Numbers or Excel to browse your whole library at a glance — every list, every item, every note. You can filter to a single list, sort by date, count what you’ve finished this year, or hand the file to a service like Notion, Airtable, or Google Sheets. The api_id and api_source columns are also kept on every item row, so the export is usable as input to other tools that recognize TMDB, iTunes, or IGDB IDs.

If Sofa isn’t working out for you, this export is also how you take your data with you.