How to export your TickTick data

The basics

TickTick calls its export a backup, and it lives in one place: the web app. The Backup and Import documentation puts it behind your avatar in the top left corner, under Settings, then Account, then Backup and Import.

That single screen does three jobs: it generates a backup of your data, imports a backup back in, and is the entry point for pulling tasks in from other applications. Knowing all three sit together saves hunting through the mobile settings for something that is not there.

Use the web app, not your phone

Generate the backup at www.ticktick.com, signed into the account you want to copy.

TickTick documents the backup flow on the web version specifically. The mobile apps have an import screen, so it is easy to assume the reverse exists somewhere nearby, and it does not. If you only ever use TickTick on a phone, this is the step that requires opening a browser.

Do this before you need it. A backup you generate while deciding whether to switch costs a minute; one you go looking for after cancelling a subscription may not be available on the same terms.

Generate the backup

Click your avatar in the top left corner, open Settings, choose Account, then Backup and Import, then Generate Backup. The file downloads to your machine.

Keep it somewhere you will find it again. TickTick’s backup is a point-in-time copy with no link back to your account, so a backup taken today knows nothing about a task you add tomorrow. If your move takes a fortnight, take a fresh backup at the end of it rather than trusting the first one.

Import a backup into another TickTick account

The same screen imports. Sign into the destination account, go to Backup and Import, and choose to import the backup file.

This is the route TickTick documents for merging two accounts, which is worth knowing for a case people hit often: a personal account and a work account that should have been one account. Generate from the first, import into the second. Nothing is removed from the source, so the original stays intact while you check the result.

Know where third-party imports live

Importing from another app is a separate screen: Settings, then Integrations and Import.

The platforms differ, and the import documentation is specific. On the web you can upload backup files from Todoist, Microsoft To Do, Wunderlist, OmniFocus, Toodledo and iCal. On iOS you can import Reminders, Todoist and Microsoft To Do directly. On Android the direct list covers Todoist, Microsoft To Do and Any.do. Anything beyond those has to be done on the web.

This matters in both directions. If you are moving into TickTick, the mobile route may be enough. If you are moving out, none of it helps.

Work out which direction you are going

The two screens exist because TickTick treats moving in and moving out as different problems, and it is much better equipped for one of them.

Read the table as a warning rather than a menu. Every row that produces a file is web-only, and the mobile apps only ever accept data. If you have been using TickTick entirely on a phone for three years, nothing you have done so far has involved the screen you now need.

Check the backup before you rely on it

Open the file and look for the parts of your system that are hardest to rebuild.

Find one recurring task, one task with a long note, one with subtasks, and one you completed last month. Recurrence rules and completed history are the two things most likely to be thin in any task manager’s export, and both are expensive to reconstruct by hand. Confirm they are present before you delete anything or let a subscription lapse.

If something is missing, you still have the account, and you can screenshot or copy the affected items out by hand before anything lapses. That is the whole reason to check while the source is live rather than after the move.

What to do with the exported file

Keep the backup even after a successful move. It is the only copy of your TickTick history once the account goes, and it costs nothing to store.

Then decide what needs to travel. A migration is the one moment when deleting years of dead someday items is easy, because the alternative is carrying them by hand into a new system. Most people move far less than they export, and are glad they did.

A reasonable cut: everything with a date in the next month, every project you have touched this quarter, and nothing else. Anything older is reference material, and the backup file is a better home for it than a list you have to scroll past every morning.

How Done Bear helps a TickTick move

Done Bear is a GTD task manager with five fixed views, not a calendar and not a habit tracker. TickTick bundles a calendar, a Pomodoro timer and habits; Done Bear deliberately does one job, so the comparison is about scope before it is about features.

• Tasks live on the device and sync in the background, so views open with no network round trip.
• The same list runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS and the web.
• A CLI and a GraphQL API mean a backup file can be scripted in rather than retyped.
• A hosted MCP server lets an AI assistant triage the list once it arrives.

When you might not need this. If you use TickTick’s calendar view, Pomodoro timer or habit tracking, moving to Done Bear means losing them and adding separate tools. That is a real cost, and the comparison page states which side of it you are on.

Open Settings, then Import in Done Bear, choose TickTick, and upload the backup CSV. The preview shows what will be created before you confirm. Checklist-style tasks become a single task with the items in its notes, so check that tradeoff before importing.

Done Bear is free up to 250 tasks with no credit card, so review the import size and judge the fit before moving the rest.