How to export all your data from Harvest
Updated 2026-10-21 · Written by the Feestead team
Whether you're switching tools or just want a backup before renewal, do a full export first. Here's exactly where everything lives, based on Harvest's own help article.
1. The account-wide export (admins)
Go to Settings → Import/Export. From there you can download:
- All company time data — one CSV
- All invoices — a ZIP of PDFs
- All estimates — a ZIP of PDFs
This is the single most important backup. Do it first.
2. Reference lists
| Data | Where | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Clients & contacts | Manage → Clients | Excel, CSV |
| Tasks | Manage → Tasks | Excel, CSV |
| People | Team | Excel, CSV |
| Projects | Projects (project analysis for detail) | Excel, CSV |
3. Reports you rely on
- Detailed time — Reports → New report → Detailed time (Excel, CSV, PDF). Use "Custom" to choose columns.
- Expenses — Reports → New report → Detailed expense. The PDF includes receipt images, so keep it.
- Invoices & payments — Invoices → Report (admins).
- Profitability, contractors, activity log — under Reports, if your plan includes them.
4. Or pull everything through the API
Developers can use the Harvest v2 API with a personal access token from id.getharvest.com/developers. List endpoints are paginated (up to 2,000 records per page) and rate-limited, so follow links.next and respect Retry-After.
curl "https://api.harvestapp.com/v2/time_entries?per_page=2000" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $HARVEST_TOKEN" \ -H "Harvest-Account-Id: $HARVEST_ACCOUNT_ID" \ -H "User-Agent: my-backup ([email protected])"
Feestead's importer does exactly this for you — every list, every page — and then reconciles the result.
5. Checklist before you cancel
- All time CSV downloaded and opens correctly
- Invoices and estimates ZIPs downloaded
- Expense report PDF with receipts saved
- Totals checked: hours per project in your export match Harvest
- Integrations listed (Zapier, scripts, accounting sync)
Move from Harvest without losing a minute
Paste a Harvest token, import everything, and check every project against Harvest's numbers before you cancel. Free for one person; $11 per person per month for teams, with no usage fees.