beets/docs/plugins/export.rst
2025-08-10 16:25:05 +01:00

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Export Plugin
=============
The ``export`` plugin lets you get data from the items and export the content as
JSON_, CSV_, or XML_.
.. _csv: https://fileinfo.com/extension/csv
.. _json: https://www.json.org
.. _xml: https://fileinfo.com/extension/xml
Enable the ``export`` plugin (see :ref:`using-plugins` for help). Then, type
``beet export`` followed by a :doc:`query </reference/query>` to get the data
from your library. For example, run this:
::
$ beet export beatles
to print a JSON file containing information about your Beatles tracks.
Command-Line Options
--------------------
The ``export`` command has these command-line options:
- ``--include-keys`` or ``-i``: Choose the properties to include in the output
data. The argument is a comma-separated list of simple glob patterns where
``*`` matches any string. For example:
::
$ beet export -i 'title,mb*' beatles
will include the ``title`` property and all properties starting with ``mb``.
You can add the ``-i`` option multiple times to the command line.
- ``--library`` or ``-l``: Show data from the library database instead of the
files' tags.
- ``--album`` or ``-a``: Show data from albums instead of tracks (implies
``--library``).
- ``--output`` or ``-o``: Path for an output file. If not informed, will print
the data in the console.
- ``--append``: Appends the data to the file instead of writing.
- ``--format`` or ``-f``: Specifies the format the data will be exported as. If
not informed, JSON will be used by default. The format options include csv,
json, `jsonlines <https://jsonlines.org/>`_ and xml.
Configuration
-------------
To configure the plugin, make a ``export:`` section in your configuration file.
For JSON export, these options are available under the ``json`` and
``jsonlines`` keys:
- **ensure_ascii**: Escape non-ASCII characters with ``\uXXXX`` entities.
- **indent**: The number of spaces for indentation.
- **separators**: A ``[item_separator, dict_separator]`` tuple.
- **sort_keys**: Sorts the keys in JSON dictionaries.
Those options match the options from the `Python json module`_. Similarly, these
options are available for the CSV format under the ``csv`` key:
- **delimiter**: Used as the separating character between fields. The default
value is a comma (,).
- **dialect**: The kind of CSV file to produce. The default is ``excel``.
These options match the options from the `Python csv module`_.
.. _python csv module: https://docs.python.org/3/library/csv.html#csv-fmt-params
.. _python json module: https://docs.python.org/2/library/json.html#basic-usage
The default options look like this:
::
export:
json:
formatting:
ensure_ascii: false
indent: 4
separators: [',' , ': ']
sort_keys: true
csv:
formatting:
delimiter: ','
dialect: excel