How to Export Your StoryGraph Library (And What's Actually in the File)

If you've been logging books on StoryGraph for a while, there's a good chunk of your reading life in there. Every rating, every review, every "started this, gave up on page 80". It's worth having a copy.

StoryGraph lets you export your whole library as a CSV file. It's a slightly different process from Goodreads - the file is emailed to you rather than downloaded straight away - and there are a few gaps worth knowing about before you rely on it.

Here's how to do it, what you'll get, and what your options are afterwards.

How to Export Your StoryGraph Library

Step 1: Sign in to StoryGraph
Head to thestorygraph.com and sign in.

Step 2: Open Manage Account
Go to your profile, then Manage Account.

Step 3: Find your data options
Find Manage Your Data. This is where StoryGraph keeps its import and export tools.

Step 4: Click Export StoryGraph Library

Step 5: Click Generate export
StoryGraph will start preparing your file.

Step 5: Check your email
This is the bit that catches people out. Unlike Goodreads, there's no download button that appears on the page. StoryGraph emails you a link when the file is ready. If it hasn't turned up after a few minutes, check your spam folder.

Step 6: Download it promptly
The link in the email expires after 30 days. Download the file and keep it somewhere safe.

What's in the Export?

You get a CSV (spreadsheet) file with one row per book. It's genuinely thorough, and it includes some things a Goodreads export can't:

• Book details: Title, authors, contributors (translators, illustrators and so on, with their roles), and an ISBN for most books
• Your reading: Read status, including Did Not Finish, the date you added each book, and every date you've read it
• Rereads: A read count, plus the start and finish dates of each read in a single column
• Your opinions: Star rating (to the quarter star) and your written review
• Moods and pace: Whatever you've tagged, such as "dark, emotional" or "fast"
• Character questions: Your answers to StoryGraph's "character- or plot-driven?", "loveable characters?" and similar questions
• Content warnings: Grouped by severity (Graphic, Moderate, Minor), plus any description you wrote
• Organisation: Your tags, the format (paperback, hardcover, audio, digital), and whether you own it

A couple of quirks to be aware of if you're opening it yourself:

• The ISBN column is sometimes not an ISBN. For books StoryGraph doesn't have an ISBN for, the column holds StoryGraph's own internal ID instead. It looks like a long string of letters and numbers, and nothing outside StoryGraph will recognise it.
• Reviews include HTML. If you used bold or italics, you'll see the tags (<b>, <i> and so on) in the raw text.
• Several dates share one column. Rereads are listed newest first, separated by commas, like 2026/03/19-2026/03/24, 2019/03/24.

What's Not in the Export?

This surprises people, because StoryGraph clearly knows these things:

• Page count, publisher and publication year. None of these are included.
• Genres. Not included, despite being central to how StoryGraph works.
• Series. You won't find which series a book belongs to, or its number.
• Cover images. The file is text only.
• Reading progress. Where you're up to in a book you're currently reading isn't there - only your status.
• Private notes. Not included.
• Your stats and charts. The file holds the raw data, not the pie charts. You can rebuild a lot of it yourself, though (see below).

None of these are dealbreakers, but if page counts and genres matter to you, plan on filling them in again wherever you take your data.

What Can You Do With the File?

Option 1: Keep it as a backup
The simplest choice, and a sensible one. Years of reading history living only in one app you don't control is a bit precarious. Export once or twice a year and file it away.

Option 2: Open it in a spreadsheet
Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets will open it fine. Sort by rating, count the books you finished last year, see which tags you use most. The multi-date column and the HTML in reviews make it a bit messier than a Goodreads export, but it's all there.

Option 3: Import it into another book tracker
A few apps accept StoryGraph files directly:

• Hardcover - Modern, actively developed, with good community features
• Literal - Clean design, with a social side
• Book Assembly - Brings across moods, pace, content warnings and rereads, and turns your tags into lists

Not every tracker that accepts Goodreads files accepts StoryGraph ones, and the formats are different enough that you can't simply pretend one is the other. Check before you commit.

Importing into Book Assembly

If you do bring it here, the import walks you through it step by step: upload the file, pick which books to bring across, choose what happens to each of your tags, and tidy up author names so they match anything already in your library. Duplicates are skipped automatically.

Most of what's in the file comes across:

• Did Not Finish stays Did Not Finish
• Every reread keeps its own start and finish dates
• Moods, pace and content warnings are matched to our lists, and anything unfamiliar is kept as your own
• Quarter-star ratings are rounded to the nearest half star, so 3.25 becomes 3.5 and 4.75 becomes 5
• Reviews come across as plain text, with the HTML removed
• StoryGraph's internal IDs are set aside rather than mistaken for ISBNs

For the gaps StoryGraph leaves, Library Health can look up the missing page counts, publishers and publication years for you afterwards and let you choose what to keep. Covers are fetched automatically.

There's a step-by-step guide in our help pages if you'd like to see each screen first.

In Short

Exporting from StoryGraph takes a couple of minutes, plus however long the email takes to arrive. The file is detailed where it counts - your ratings, reviews, rereads and moods - but leaves out page counts, genres and series, so expect to fill those in wherever you take it next.

Whatever you decide to do with it, it's worth having. It's your reading history, after all.

Questions about exporting or importing your library? Get in touch or join us at r/BookAssembly.