How to Export a Trello Board to JSON (and What to Do With It)

Trello's JSON export is the most complete copy of a board you can get out of Trello — every list, card, label, member and comment in one machine-readable file — and it's available on every plan, including Free. It's also slightly hidden, and the file it produces confuses people the first time they open it. This guide covers where the export lives, what's actually in it, what its limits are, and the three things people usually want it for: backups, analysis, and moving to another tool.

How to export a Trello board to JSON

1. Open the board you want to export.
2. Open the board menu — the three-dot "Show menu" button at the top right of the board.
3. Click More, then Print, export, and share.
4. Click Export as JSON.
5. Your browser opens (or downloads) the raw JSON. If it opens in a tab, save it with Ctrl+S / Cmd+S and make sure the filename ends in .json.

Two things worth knowing before you're surprised by them:

• The export is per-board, not per-workspace. If you have six boards, that's six exports. There's no built-in "export everything" on the Free plan (workspace-level CSV export is a paid feature, and it's CSV, not JSON).
• The file is not meant for humans. It's one enormous line of nested data. That's fine — the point of JSON is that software reads it — but don't judge the export by how it looks in a text editor.

What's inside the file (and what isn't)

Inside a board's JSON export you'll find:

• Lists — every column, including archived ones, with their order
• Cards — title, description, due date, labels, members, position, checklist items, and whether the card is archived
• Labels — the board's full label set, names and colours
• Comments and actions — as actions entries
• Attachment URLs — links to files on cards

And the limits that matter:

• Attachments are URLs, not files. The export references file locations; it does not contain the files themselves. A true backup means downloading attachments separately.
• Action history is capped. The export includes roughly the 1,000 most recent actions on the board. On a busy, years-old board, older comments and activity simply aren't in the file.
• Power-Up data varies. Data stored by Power-Ups may appear in raw form or not at all, depending on the Power-Up.

For a backup routine, the honest version is: JSON export per board on a schedule, plus a separate pass for any attachments you can't afford to lose.

What people actually do with the export

Backups. A periodic JSON export is a reasonable insurance policy against accidental deletions or an account problem. Keep the files somewhere versioned or dated; a backup you overwrite every week is only one mistake deep.

Analysis. Because the structure is regular, a short script (or an AI assistant, these days) can answer questions Trello's own interface can't: how many cards entered Done per month, which lists cards die in, cycle times between lists. The actions array is the raw material for all of it — bearing in mind the 1,000-action cap on history.

Migration. This is the big one. The JSON file is a complete, faithful description of your board's structure — which makes it the cleanest way to move a board into another tool without re-typing it. Anything that can read the format can rebuild your lists, cards, labels and due dates exactly as they were.

That last one is why we handle Trello's JSON directly: Tarsen imports a Trello JSON export into a fresh board — lists, cards, labels, descriptions and due dates intact. People usually make the move for what happens after the import: Tarsen is a Kanban board you can talk to — Tarsen Voice runs the board by conversation, and Mission Mode turns the board into a short, realistic daily plan. The import is the boring part, which is exactly what you want from a migration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you export a Trello board on the free plan?

Yes. JSON export is available on every Trello plan, including Free, via the board menu → More → Print, export, and share → Export as JSON. Workspace-wide CSV export is the feature reserved for paid plans; per-board JSON is free.

How do I open a Trello JSON file?

Any text editor will open it, but it will look like an unreadable wall of text — that's normal. To actually explore it, use a JSON viewer (most code editors format it with one keystroke), or hand it to whatever tool you're importing into and let it do the reading.

Does the JSON export include attachments?

Only as URLs. The export records where each attachment lives, but the files themselves aren't in the JSON. For a complete backup, download important attachments separately — they're the one part of a board the export can't restore.

Does the export include the board's full history?

No — it includes around the 1,000 most recent actions (comments, moves, edits). Structure is complete: all lists and cards are present regardless of age. It's the activity trail that gets truncated on busy boards.

Can I import a Trello JSON export into another Kanban tool?

Yes, if the tool supports the format. Because the export describes the whole board structure, tools that read it can rebuild your lists, cards, labels and due dates exactly. Tarsen does this natively — see importing from Trello.