Can I export everything?

Yes — everything, any time, in formats you can actually use. This is the core promise Harbor is built on.

How an export works

You press Export, we build the archive on our servers, and we email you a link when it’s ready.

So you don’t have to sit and watch a progress bar. Close Harbor, close the browser tab, shut the laptop — the export keeps building without you. A big library takes a while, and none of that is time you have to spend.

The email lands wherever you read email, and the link works from any device — an export doesn’t belong to the computer that asked for it. You’ll be signed in before anything downloads, so a forwarded email is never a copy of your notes. And if an export ever fails, we email you about that too. Silence is not a status.

You can start one from anywhere Harbor runs: the web app, Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Android, or the CLI. On the web, Mac and Windows it’s under Settings → Account. On iPhone and Android, open More and tap your name at the top. On iPad, open Home in the sidebar and tap your avatar at the top left. Wherever you press it, it’s the same export doing the same thing, and you can download it on a different device than the one you started it from.

Or just one notebook

You don’t have to take the lot. Right-click a notebook in the sidebar — or use the menu on its header, or its row in Manage → Notebooks — and choose Export…, and you get the same three formats scoped to that notebook alone.

It’s an ordinary export job either way: same progress, same email, same three-day link. A notebook export uses that format’s slot exactly like a whole-account one, so it shows up under Settings → Account where you can download or delete it.

One thing to avoid on the Mac and Windows apps. Their Import & Export screen has a second Export as HTML button — same words, different button — which builds the file on your own computer and leaves your attachments behind. The complete copy is always the one under Settings → Account. We’re removing the other one.

What you get

Whichever you choose, what you download is a ZIP file. There are three, and all three are complete — notes, tags, and every attachment.

• HTML — the one to take if you’re only taking one. Every note with its tags and its files, ready to open in any browser. Unzip it, double-click index.html, and you’re reading your library with no app, no account, and no internet.
• Markdown — one plain .md file per note, in a folder named after its notebook, with your attachments alongside. It’s an Obsidian vault as it stands: point Obsidian, Bear, iA Writer, or any text editor at the folder and start reading. And Harbor imports it straight back, so leaving and returning both work. There’s a full walk-through, including the one thing it doesn’t carry: tasks come back as plain checklists, so use Evernote (ENEX) if you need those intact.
• Evernote (ENEX) — for moving into another app, including back to Evernote if you ever want to return. (It’s the same format we import — the door swings both ways.) You get one .enex per notebook, named after the notebook, with your tags and your attachments inside the file itself — so importing it elsewhere brings the whole note across, not a stub you re-attach by hand. It includes notes that are in your trash, so empty the trash first if you’d rather it didn’t.

Exporting your whole account is also the GDPR copy of your data. There’s no form to fill in and nobody to email — it’s the same button.

Some things worth saying plainly

• Your attachments come with it. Every file you’ve attached — photos, PDFs, scans, the lot — is in the ZIP, in all three formats.
• The link lasts three days. Then we delete that copy from our storage, deliberately: an export you made a year ago shouldn’t still be sitting on our servers. Start another whenever you like — or delete one yourself the moment you’ve got it safe.
• One export of each kind at a time. An HTML copy, a Markdown copy and an Evernote copy can all exist at once. Ask for a second of the same kind while the first is still building and you get the one that’s already going. Once it’s ready, Harbor won’t start another until you delete it or it expires. We build one export at a time across the whole service, so if yours is waiting its turn it says so rather than pretending to be stuck at 0%.
• All three formats work everywhere. Web, Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Android and the CLI all offer the same three, and an export you start on one device downloads on any other.
• Encrypted notes stay encrypted. We hold no key, so an export can’t include readable copies of them — the same trade-off that keeps them out of search.
• Export never gets locked. If your subscription lapses, the account goes read-only — but export and delete keep working. There is no state in which your data is in Harbor and out of your reach.
• You can script it. The harbor CLI covers the whole API, so a cron job can pull a regular backup without you thinking about it. See the CLI.
• No export tax. No fee, no throttle, no “contact sales.”

Our honest recommendation: export a copy once in a while even if you’re happy. A second brain deserves a backup you personally hold — and a notes company that encourages you to keep one is showing you how it plans to behave. (For what we do on our side, see How is my data backed up?)