Exporting Contacts

SendBeam lets you export contacts to a CSV file at any time. Exports are generated on demand and downloaded directly to your browser.

Exports contain every contact field plus tags, lists and custom fields, making them useful for backups, migrations to other platforms, offline analysis, or sharing a list with a third-party tool.

Exporting from the Contacts page

To export every contact, or every contact matching a search or filter:

1. Navigate to Contacts in the left sidebar to open the contacts list.
2. Optionally narrow the list with the search box and the status, tag, list, source and date-added filters. Leave them all clear to export everyone.
3. Choose Export CSV from the ⋯ menu at the top of the page. A CSV of all contacts matching the current search and filters downloads — not just the page you are looking at.

Exporting selected contacts

Use the checkboxes to select specific contacts on the page (see Bulk Actions for details on selecting contacts), then click Export in the bulk action toolbar that appears. Only the ticked contacts are exported, with their tags and custom fields (list memberships are only in the full export). If you choose Select all matching instead, the export uses the full export with every column.

CSV format and columns

Exported CSV files use standard comma-separated formatting with every value quoted, in UTF-8, so they open in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. A value that begins with =, +, - or @ is prefixed with a single quote so the spreadsheet shows it as text rather than running it as a formula.

The first row is a header row. The columns of the full export are:

• email — the contact's email address.
• first_name — first name, or empty if not set.
• last_name — last name, or empty if not set.
• status — subscription status: subscribed, unsubscribed, bounced, or complained.
• source — how the contact was added (e.g. manual, import, form, api).
• tags — the contact's tag names, separated by semicolons.
• lists — the names of the lists the contact belongs to, separated by semicolons.
• created_at, subscribed_at, unsubscribed_at — ISO 8601 timestamps.
• custom.<key> — one column per custom field key found on any exported contact, for example custom.company.

The selected-rows export has the same shape without the lists, subscribed_at and unsubscribed_at columns.

When to use exports

Exports are useful in many common scenarios:

• Backup — take a copy of your contacts as a safety net before major changes such as bulk deletes or large imports.
• Platform migration — if you are moving to or from another email marketing tool, an export gives you a portable copy of your subscriber data.
• Offline analysis — import the CSV into a spreadsheet or data tool to run custom reports on your audience data.
• Compliance requests — if a subscriber requests a copy of their data under GDPR or similar regulations, search for them, select the row and export it to share with them.