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Export your organization

Zulip has high quality export tools that can be used to migrate between the hosted Zulip Cloud service and your own servers. Zulip offers the following options for exporting data in an importable format:

In addition, Zulip Cloud Standard and Zulip Cloud Plus customers can request a compliance export:

  • Compliance export: A targeted, human-readable export of messages matching some combination of criteria (e.g., sender, recipient, message keyword, or timestamp).

Export data in an importable format

Section titled “Export data in an importable format”

This export is formatted for importing into Zulip Cloud or a self-hosted installation of Zulip. It is not designed to be human-readable.

  1. Go to Data exports.
  2. Click Start export.
  3. Select the desired Export type.
  4. Click Start export to begin the export process. After a few minutes, you’ll be able to download the exported data from the list of data exports.
  5. Use Zulip’s logical data import tool to import your data into a self-hosted server. For Zulip Cloud imports, contact support@zulip.com.

Export of all public and private data

Section titled “Export of all public and private data”

To perform this export, your organization must meet the following requirements:

  • You are a paid Zulip Cloud Standard or Zulip Cloud Plus customer. In rare cases, exceptions may be made in case of due legal process.
  • You have authority to read members’ direct messages. Typically, this will be because your Zulip organization is administered by a corporation, and you are an official representative of that corporation.

By requesting and executing this export, you will assume full legal responsibility that the appropriate employment agreements and corporate policy for this type of export are in place. Note that many countries have laws that require employers to notify employees of their use of such an export.

Contact support@zulip.com to request access to this export type, then follow the export instructions above.

If you self-host Zulip, an export of all public and private data can be performed by your server’s administrator.

Compliance export

Section titled “Compliance export”

This type of export is recommended if you plan to work with the exported data directly (e.g., reading messages or processing them with a script), rather than importing the export into a new Zulip organization.

To perform this export, your organization must meet the following requirements:

  • You are a paid Zulip Cloud Standard or Zulip Cloud Plus customer. In rare cases, exceptions may be made in case of due legal process.
  • You have authority to read members’ direct messages. Typically, this will be because your Zulip organization is administered by a corporation, and you are an official representative of that corporation.

By requesting and executing this export, you will assume full legal responsibility that the appropriate employment agreements and corporate policy for this type of export are in place. Note that many countries have laws that require employers to notify employees of their use of such an export.

  1. Email support@zulip.com asking for a compliance export. Please send the email from the same address that you use to sign in to Zulip, so that Zulip Support can verify that you are an owner of the organization. You will need to specify:
    1. The zulipchat.com URL for your organization
    2. What limits you would like on the export. Currently, compliance exports can apply any combination of the following filters:
      • Message sender
      • Message recipient
      • Message contents, by specific keywords
      • Sent timestamp before, after, or between dates If you need other limits, please ask.
    3. Your preferred format for the export: CSV or JSON.
    4. Whether or not you want to receive copies of all attachments referenced in the exported messages.
  2. You will receive the requested information once your authority to request the export has been verified.

If you self-host Zulip, a compliance export can be performed by your server’s administrator.

Configure whether administrators can export your private data

Section titled “Configure whether administrators can export your private data”
  1. Go to Account & privacy.
  2. Under Privacy, toggle Let administrators export my private data.
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