Exporting your contacts out of GoHighLevel is easy, and if you have never done it, you should. A CSV on your own drive is the most basic form of data ownership there is. The short version: go to Contacts, open Smart Lists, select everyone, click More, then Export, and download the file from Bulk Actions when it is ready. That part takes two minutes.
The part most guides skip is what that file does not contain. The export is a snapshot of your contact table, nothing more, and the gap between “I exported my contacts” and “I have a copy of my data” is wider than most agency owners expect. This post covers both halves: how to run the export properly, and exactly what gets left behind.
How do you export contacts from HighLevel?
HighLevel replaced its old browser-based export with a background service, so exports now run on HighLevel’s servers and you can keep working while the file is prepared. Here is the full flow inside a sub-account:
- Go to Contacts and open Smart Lists.
- Use the advanced filters if you only want a segment, or skip filtering to take everything.
- Select your contacts. For the whole account, tick the checkbox to the left of the filter fields and click Select All Contacts.
- Check the columns before you export. Click Manage Fields and tick every field you want in the file, because the CSV only contains the columns currently visible in the contacts table. This step is where most incomplete exports happen. If a custom field is not shown as a column, it will not be in your file.
- Click More, then Export (there is also an Export option behind the three dots next to the Add Contact button). Confirm in the modal.
- The job is queued and runs in the background. You can click Check Progress to watch it under Bulk Actions, and you get a notification when the file is ready.
- Go to Contacts, then Bulk Actions, find the row with Operation set to Export, and click the download icon.
Two permissions details worth knowing before you delegate this to someone. Starting an export requires an admin user, and downloading the finished file is limited to Agency Admins and Location Admins. And one deadline: the download link stays live for 30 days, after which it is disabled. An export you never downloaded is an export you never had.
If you run an agency, remember the export is per location. There is no agency-level button that pulls contacts from every client account at once, so a ten-client agency runs this ten times, or combines the ten files in a spreadsheet afterwards.
What does the contact export actually include?
The file is a flat CSV of your contact records: names, emails, phone numbers, tags, and whichever standard and custom fields you made visible as columns before exporting. Opened in Excel or Google Sheets, it looks exactly like your contacts table, one row per contact.
That flatness is the point, and also the limitation. A contact in HighLevel is not just a row of fields. It is the hub for conversations, notes, tasks, appointments, and opportunities. The CSV takes the hub and leaves the spokes.
What does the export miss?
More than most people assume. These gaps come straight from HighLevel’s own documentation for the export feature.
| Data | In the contact export? |
|---|---|
| Names, emails, phones, tags | Yes |
| Custom field values | Only if visible as columns when you export |
| Notes | Latest note only, truncated at 255 characters |
| Conversation history (emails, SMS logs) | No |
| Opportunities and pipeline stages | No, separate export from the Opportunities page |
| Tasks and appointments | No |
| Workflows, funnels, calendars, settings | No, a contact export was never meant to cover these |
The notes limitation deserves a second look because it is easy to misread. The export does not include your notes with the last one on top. It includes one note per contact, the most recent one, cut off at 255 characters. Years of call notes on a long-term client reduce to a single truncated line.
Conversation history is a clean zero. Every email thread, every SMS exchange, every record of what was actually said to a lead is classified as automation history and excluded. If your team relies on conversation context to work a pipeline, none of that context survives the export.
And anything that is not a column on a contact record simply is not in the file, because the export is built from the contacts table. Related records live elsewhere and need their own process, where one exists at all.
Is a CSV export a backup?
It is a snapshot, and snapshots age badly. The file is accurate for the moment you clicked Export and drifts further from reality with every new lead, every edit, and every deleted record. Since HighLevel offers no scheduled exports, keeping even a weekly CSV current means a human runs the routine manually, per location, forever. In practice that discipline lasts about a month.
Recovery is the other weak half. When something goes wrong, a CSV cannot be restored in one motion. You are re-importing, re-mapping fields, and hoping the file is recent enough to matter, and it does nothing for whatever it never captured in the first place. We have written about how the platform’s own safety nets have the same shape: the 60-day restore window only reverses deletions, snapshots skip contacts entirely, and HighLevel’s own backups protect the platform, not your account. Some agencies script around all this with the API, which works but takes real engineering to maintain.
The version of this that actually holds up is continuous: a backup that captures every contact, opportunity, task, note, and custom field as it changes, keeps the version history, and can push a record straight back into HighLevel when you need it. That is what we built GHLArmor to do (it is our product, so weigh that as you read this). It is the first backup approved by the HighLevel Marketplace, and it removes both weaknesses of the CSV at once: nothing to remember to run, and one-click restore instead of a re-import.
None of which makes the manual export worthless. Run one before any big import, bulk edit, or team change, and keep a periodic copy outside the platform on principle. Just know what the file is: a partial picture of one moment, not a safety net.
Frequently asked questions
How do I export all my contacts from HighLevel? Go to Contacts, open Smart Lists, tick the checkbox at the top of the list, and choose Select All Contacts. Then click More and choose Export. The export runs in the background and the finished CSV appears under Bulk Actions, where it stays downloadable for 30 days.
Does the HighLevel contact export include conversations and notes? No conversations, and almost no notes. The export leaves out automation history such as past emails and SMS logs entirely. For notes, only the most recent note comes along, and it is cut off at 255 characters.
Can I schedule automatic contact exports in HighLevel? No. HighLevel does not offer scheduled or recurring exports. Every export is a manual job that someone has to remember to run, per sub-account, every time.
Who can export and download contacts in HighLevel? Only admin users can start a contact export, and only Agency Admins and Location Admins can download the finished file from Bulk Actions. If you do not see the export option, check your role permissions.
Is a CSV export a good enough backup for HighLevel? It is better than nothing, but it is a thin slice of your account frozen at one moment. It captures contact fields only, misses conversations and note history, goes stale the moment anything changes, and restoring from it means a manual re-import. A real backup runs continuously and keeps version history.