How to export your Goodreads library (step by step), and import it anywhere

Your Goodreads library might hold years of reading: every book you’ve finished, every rating, reviews you spent real time on, and the dates you read things. Exporting it takes a couple of minutes, gives you a backup you control, and lets you take your history to any other app.

This guide covers exactly how to export from Goodreads, what’s actually in the file, the quirks worth knowing about, and how to import it elsewhere, including into Shelfola.

Before you start

• Use a computer. Goodreads’ help pages say import and export are desktop-only. If you only have a phone, requesting the desktop version of the site in your browser may work, but a laptop or desktop is the reliable route.
• Sign in to the Goodreads account whose library you want.
• Expect a short wait for big libraries. Goodreads builds the file on request, and larger libraries take longer.

How to export your Goodreads library

1. Go to goodreads.com and click My Books in the top menu.
2. In the left-hand column, find Tools and click Import and export.
3. Under the Export heading, click Export Library.
4. Wait while Goodreads generates the file. When it’s ready, a link appears below the button that reads like Your export from (date) - (time).
5. Click that link to download the file. It’s a CSV, usually called goodreads_library_export.csv.

That’s it. Save a copy somewhere safe, such as a cloud drive or email it to yourself, before you do anything else with it. It’s your backup.

What’s in the export file

The file is a spreadsheet with one row per book on any of your shelves. You can open it in Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets or LibreOffice. The columns include:

• Book details: Book Id, Title, Author, Additional Authors, ISBN, ISBN13, Publisher, Binding, Number of Pages, Year Published and Original Publication Year.
• Your ratings and reviews: My Rating (0 means unrated), My Review, and a Spoiler flag.
• Your dates: Date Read and Date Added.
• Your shelves: Exclusive Shelf (read, currently-reading or to-read) and Bookshelves, which lists every shelf the book is on, including your custom ones.
• Extras: Private Notes, Read Count and Owned Copies.

Quirks worth knowing

• ISBNs look odd. They’re written like ="9780141439518" so spreadsheet apps don’t strip leading zeros. That’s normal, and good importers understand it. Don’t "fix" them by hand.
• Not every book has an ISBN. Some editions, especially ebooks and older books, have an empty ISBN. Importers then fall back to matching by title and author.
• One date per book. The file has a single Date Read, so if you’ve reread a book only the most recent finish is listed by date. Read Count tells you how many times you’ve read it.
• Missing dates are common. If you never entered a finish date on Goodreads, it won’t be in the file. Nothing can recover dates that were never recorded.
• Reviews may contain formatting. Line breaks and simple formatting can appear as HTML tags such as br. Importers usually clean these up.
• Editing the file is risky. If you open and re-save it in a spreadsheet app, keep it as CSV in UTF-8 and don’t rename the column headers.

How to import it into Shelfola

Shelfola reads the Goodreads export file as it comes, quirks included. Here’s how it works:

1. Create a free account (or sign in) and open Bring your books. This link takes you straight there with Goodreads selected.
2. Drop in your goodreads_library_export.csv. The file is read in your browser first, so you see what’s in it before anything is saved.
3. Choose who can see your imported reviews: everyone, followers only, or only you.
4. Check the preview. Each book is matched by ISBN first, then by title and author. Anything uncertain is flagged so you can pick the right book with one tap or skip it.
5. Import. Most libraries take about a minute, and files of up to 10,000 books are supported.

What comes across: your read, currently reading and want-to-read shelves (plus a DNF shelf, if you kept one); your star ratings and written reviews (with their spoiler flag); read dates and reread counts; private notes and owned copies; and your custom shelves, which become tags so you can still filter by them.

If you change your mind, every import can be undone in one tap. Undo removes the books, reads, ratings, reviews, tags and lists that import added. And nothing changes on Goodreads itself: your account stays exactly as it was.

Importing into other apps

The same file works in most book trackers. Menus change over time, so treat these as pointers and follow each app’s on-screen steps:

• StoryGraph offers a Goodreads import in its account settings. Upload the same CSV. It’s a good fit if you want mood-based recommendations and detailed stats.
• Hardcover can import from Goodreads (and StoryGraph) through its import settings.
• Fable has offered a Goodreads import, though as of October 2026 it doesn’t offer a library export of its own, so think about how you’d leave before committing years of history.
• A spreadsheet. You don’t need an app at all: the CSV is your library. Sort, filter and chart it however you like.

Not sure where to go? Our roundup of the best book tracking apps in 2026 compares the main options honestly.

Moving from StoryGraph or Hardcover instead?

The same idea applies. StoryGraph lets you export your library from your profile menu, under Manage account, then Manage your data. Hardcover has CSV exports under Settings, then Exports. Shelfola imports both, keeping StoryGraph’s quarter stars, moods, pace and DNFs, and Hardcover’s lists, moods and tags. See our guides for StoryGraph and Hardcover.

If you’re on Fable, which has no export, you can still move by making a simple spreadsheet with title and author columns. Our Fable guide walks through it.

Troubleshooting

The import says my file isn’t recognised. Make sure you uploaded the original CSV, not a spreadsheet saved as .xlsx or .numbers. If you edited it, re-export it as CSV with UTF-8 encoding.

Some books matched the wrong edition. That usually happens when the ISBN is missing. Pick the right book in the preview. In Shelfola, editions and translations are grouped under one book, so you can also switch to your edition later and your progress carries over.

A few books didn’t match at all. Very obscure, self-published or non-English titles are sometimes missing from catalogues. Skip them in the preview, then add them by search later.

My shelves look different. Goodreads has three built-in shelves plus your custom ones. Shelfola maps the built-in shelves to Read, Reading and Want to read, sends books on a shelf called something like dnf, did-not-finish or abandoned to its DNF shelf, and turns your other custom shelves into tags.

Should I delete my Goodreads account afterwards?

That’s up to you, but there’s no rush. Importing elsewhere doesn’t touch your Goodreads account, so you can keep it for browsing reviews or as a fallback. If you do decide to delete it, remember that deletion is permanent: make sure you’ve downloaded your export and kept it somewhere safe first.

Your reading history is yours. A two-minute export means you’ll never have to start from zero again.