With this automation, you can automate exporting CSVs for Airtable Tables! The CSVs will be automatically uploaded to Dropbox. This automation can be scheduled to run regularly, and supports webhooks. Every time the automation is re-run, the CSVs on Dropbox will be replaced with the most recent data. Also, you have the option to not overwrite existing files and create new versions instead.
Note: the exported CSVs may look slightly differently than the ones that can be exported through Airtable’s UI. Please make sure to check the example CSV below.
Example
This CSV was exported with the automation from an Airtable View. To download the CSV, right-click on it and click “Download Linked File”.
Features
- Supports multiple tables (even from different bases).
- Have the option to keep replacing existing CSV or create different versions.
- Option to hiding certain fields.
- Supports being scheduled or triggered by Webhook.
- Supports exporting Markdown to retain formatting for the new rich text field.
💡Attachments
If you need to download Airtable attachments, you can use this automation.
Use Cases
- Automatic backups
- Pair it with a scheduled email
- Use
IMPORTDATA(url)
function in Google Sheets - Anyone who often downloads CSV files manually
Linked Records
Unlike Airtable CSV download, Airtable API doesn’t include linked record names by default. It will be shown as IDs instead. So to fix that you would need to add a lookup field that shows the linked record’s name.
Troubleshooting
Some fields contain random characters, why?
These are linked fields showing record IDs. To solve this, add a lookup field and use it instead. We recommend to use formulas not just for linked records, even for currency, date formats and many other field types that’re not fully supported in Airtable API.
I would like to hide some fields, how?
Fields that are hidden through Airtable’s UI will still be included in the CSV because Airtable does not tell us that those fields are hidden. To hide fields, add their names to the “Fields to Hide” textfield in our automation.
Some fields are displayed in the wrong format, why?
By default, Airtable API doesn’t show fields in the exact same way they look on Airtable. For example, linked record names will be shown as IDs instead. To fix that you would need to add a lookup field that shows the linked record’s name. We recommend to use formulas for many field types like currency, date and any other field that needs to be formatted.
I am having an issue exporting a CSV file to our Dropbox account. There is one column in Airtable that is not exporting.
If you have fields that have no data at all, these fields cannot be exported when they are completely empty.