Articles/Privacy

Take your library with you: exporting from Stashy

Updated 13 October 2026. 2 minute read.

Any app that holds years of your things should be able to hand them back. Not as a favour, and not only when you cancel. An export is what makes a library yours and not the app's.

Stashy has one built in. It runs on your device, and the file goes only where you send it.

How to export

1. Open Settings in Stashy.
2. Choose Export Library.
3. Pick a format.
4. Save the file, or share it to wherever you want it.

Nothing is uploaded in the process. The export is assembled on the device.

The formats, and when to use each

JSON, a full backup. Every item with everything Stashy knows about it: title, address, summary, category, dates, notes. This is the complete, machine-readable copy. Choose it for safekeeping.

A spreadsheet. One row per item, ready for Numbers or Excel. Choose it if you want to sort, filter or count your saves, or hand a list to someone.

Markdown, a readable document. Your library as text you can read in any editor. Choose it if you want something a person can browse without any special software, now or in ten years.

Browser bookmarks. The standard bookmarks file that every browser can import. Choose it to bring your links into Safari, Chrome or Firefox, or into another app that reads bookmark files.

A full archive. Everything above together with every stored file: the photos, PDFs, scans and recordings themselves. Choose it when you want nothing left behind. It is the largest of the five.

Which should you keep?

For a safety copy, keep two:

• the full archive, because it contains the files, and
• Markdown, because it will still be readable when nothing else is.

A copy on a drive you own, refreshed a few times a year, is enough.

Why bother, if it syncs?

Sync and backup are different things.

• Sync mirrors. If you delete something by mistake, the deletion syncs too. Stashy's Bin helps with that for a while, since deleted items wait there before they are removed, but it is a grace period and not an archive.
• Sync depends on an account. Your library is in your own iCloud, which is a good place for it. A file in your hands does not depend on anything.
• An export can go elsewhere. If your needs change and another app suits you better, the export is your way out. An app that makes leaving easy has less reason to fear you will.

A good test for any app

Before trusting an app with years of saves, try its export on the first day:

• Is there one?
• Does it include everything, or only titles and links?
• Are the formats ones other software can open?
• Does it work without contacting support?

If the answers are yes, you can use the app without worrying about the day it changes. That goes for Stashy as much as for anything else. See also what the Pocket shutdown taught.