Importing & exporting

Export a collection or selection to JSON or CSV — and what's coming for importing.

Firepanel can get your data out of Firestore in the two formats you most likely need: JSON and CSV.

Exporting to JSON#

JSON export preserves your data's structure and types as faithfully as a text format can — nested maps and arrays stay nested, and Firestore-specific types (timestamps, references, geopoints) are represented so the export round-trips meaningfully.

Use JSON when you want:

A backup before a risky edit or bulk delete.
To move data between projects or into your own scripts.
A faithful snapshot of documents with complex shapes.

Exporting to CSV#

CSV flattens documents into rows and columns, which is ideal for spreadsheets and quick analysis. Because CSV is flat, deeply nested fields are serialized into cells rather than kept as a tree — great for users, orders, and other mostly-flat collections; less ideal for documents with heavy nesting (use JSON for those).

What gets exported#

Export respects what you're looking at:

A whole collection — export everything in the current collection.
A selection — select rows in the table first, then export just those.
A filtered set — apply filters and export the result.

Tip

Pairing a saved view with export is a fast way to produce the same report on a schedule — set up the columns and filters once, save the view, and export whenever you need it.

Importing#

Note

Bulk import (uploading a JSON or CSV file to create or update many documents at once) is coming soon. Today you can create documents one at a time in the UI — see Creating and deleting. For large imports right now, use the Firebase Admin SDK or gcloud against your project.

Next#

That's the Firestore tour. Next, understand how your data and credentials are protected in Data security.