You ran the export, downloaded the archive, and unzipped it. Now what? Whether that archive is a treasure chest or a puzzle box depends almost entirely on the file formats inside. The right formats open in free tools, import into competing apps, and will still be readable in twenty years. The wrong ones chain you to software that may not exist next year.
This guide covers the five formats that keep your exported data genuinely usable — plain text, CSV, JSON, PDF, and standard media formats — plus how to spot proprietary formats and what to do about them. It builds on our universal export method in What Is Vendor Lock-In (and Why It Makes Shutdowns Hurt) and connects to the lock-in dynamics explored in What a Decade of Discontinued Apps Teaches Us.
1. Plain text (.txt, .md): the cockroach of file formats
Plain text is the simplest format ever invented and the hardest to kill. Every computer ever made can open a .txt file, and Markdown (.md) adds lightweight formatting — headings, bold, lists — while remaining readable as plain text. When a notes app exports to plain text or Markdown, celebrate: your notes are now immortal.
The tradeoff is fidelity. Plain text cannot preserve embedded images with positioning, complex tables, or app-specific features like linked databases. What it preserves perfectly is the words themselves, which for most notes is the part that matters. If your app offers both a “rich” export and a plain-text export, take both: the rich one for fidelity today, the plain-text one as insurance forever.
2. CSV: the lingua franca of structured data
Comma-separated values (CSV) is how the world moves tabular data between programs. Contacts, transactions, task lists, workout logs — if it looks like a spreadsheet, CSV carries it. Every spreadsheet app opens CSV, every database imports it, and you can even read it in a text editor in a pinch.
CSV’s weakness is structure beyond flat tables. It handles one table beautifully and nested data poorly — a contact with three phone numbers and two addresses becomes awkward. Watch for encoding issues too: CSV files in the wrong character encoding turn names with accents into gibberish. If your export looks corrupted on opening, try importing it explicitly as UTF-8 before assuming the data is lost; it usually is not.
3. JSON: structured data without the lock-in
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is the format behind most modern exports of complex data — messages with metadata, app settings, activity histories. It preserves hierarchy and relationships that CSV flattens, and it is readable enough that a non-programmer can make sense of it with a little patience.
You do not need to be a developer to benefit from JSON. Free online viewers render it as an expandable tree, and many replacement apps import JSON directly. The key advantage over proprietary formats: JSON is a published standard with implementations in every programming language, so even if every current tool vanished, the format itself remains decodable. When an app exports your history as JSON, your data has a future.
4. PDF: the format of record
Portable Document Format (PDF) is the right choice for documents whose appearance matters — invoices, contracts, formatted reports, anything you might need to prove or present. PDF preserves layout exactly and opens everywhere, which makes it the closest thing digital life has to paper.
But PDF is a display format, not a data format. Text trapped in a PDF is hard to edit, harder to import into another app, and sometimes not even selectable if the PDF is image-based. Rule of thumb: export as PDF for archiving and evidence, and also export the underlying data (as CSV, JSON, or text) for reuse. One format for looking, another for working.
5. Standard media formats: JPEG, PNG, MP4
Photos, videos, and audio have long-settled standard formats, and exports usually respect them. JPEG and PNG for images, MP4 for video, MP3 or WAV for audio — these open on every device and will for the foreseeable future. The main thing to verify is that you received originals, not degraded copies: some apps export compressed thumbnails or re-encoded versions that discard quality.
Check a few files: open an exported photo and zoom in, play an exported video end to end, confirm file sizes look plausible for originals. If the app offers a choice between “original quality” and “optimized,” always choose original for the archival export — you can compress later, but you can never uncompress. Storage is cheap; lost quality is permanent.
The formats to worry about: proprietary traps
Now the cautionary half of the guide. Some apps export in their own proprietary format — a file only their software understands. This is export theater: technically you have your data, practically you cannot use it anywhere else. Common in note apps with custom databases, design tools, and project managers with unique data models.
If you encounter a proprietary format, you have three moves. First, look for a converter — the user community around popular apps often builds them. Second, check whether the app also offers a standard-format export you missed; sometimes the good option hides in advanced settings. Third, as a last resort, treat the proprietary export as a backup of last resort and do a parallel manual migration of your most important items into standard formats. Imperfect, but far better than a single unreadable file.
This is also the moment to appreciate why open formats matter so much: choosing apps with open export formats is a decision you make once, at signup, that pays off every time a shutdown notice arrives. The format question is a lock-in question wearing a technical costume.
A note on archive formats: ZIP and friends
Exports often arrive wrapped in a ZIP archive — sometimes split into parts for large accounts. ZIP is universal: every major operating system opens it without extra software. If you receive a less common archive format, free tools handle virtually all of them, but prefer requesting ZIP when the export tool offers a choice.
One habit that saves headaches: after downloading, verify the archive before you need it. Unzip it, confirm the parts all extracted, and check that the total size matches what the app reported. A corrupted download discovered during a calm Sunday check is a minor errand; the same corruption discovered on shutdown eve is a crisis.
Formats that migrate well between apps
Export formats matter twice: once when you leave, and again when you arrive. Some formats are import formats too — the receiving app knows how to read them — and choosing an export format your next app can ingest turns a migration from a manual project into an afternoon task. Before exporting, check what your shortlisted replacement apps accept: many list their supported import formats in their help centers, and matching the two sides in advance saves the most time of any step in this guide.
CSV is the champion of import compatibility — nearly every app with structured data accepts it. Markdown imports cleanly into most modern notes apps. JSON is hit or miss for direct import but trivially convertible. PDF, for all its archival virtues, is the worst migration format: almost nothing imports a PDF as editable data. This is why the “export both” habit matters — the PDF for your records, the CSV or Markdown for your next app.
When no direct import path exists, the humble copy-paste remains undefeated. A well-organized plain-text export, even without an importer, migrates faster than a proprietary format with a broken converter. Structure your exports for human readability as well as machine import, and you keep every option open.
Frequently asked questions
Which single format should I prefer if I get a choice?
For text content: Markdown or plain text. For tabular data: CSV. For complex structured data: JSON. For visual records: PDF alongside the source data. When in doubt, take every format offered — disk space is cheaper than regret.
Can I convert a proprietary export to something usable?
Sometimes. Community-built converters exist for many popular apps, and some converters are maintained by competing apps eager to win migrating users. Search for the format extension plus “converter” or “importer.” Success varies, so verify the converted output carefully before relying on it.
What if the export is encrypted and I lost the password?
Then the export is effectively lost — encryption without the key is by design unrecoverable. This is why export passwords belong in your password manager, recorded at the moment of export. It is a small discipline that prevents a total loss.
Will today’s standard formats still work in 20 years?
Plain text, CSV, and JPEG have already survived decades and are embedded in too much infrastructure to disappear quickly. JSON and Markdown are younger but similarly entrenched. No format is guaranteed forever, which is why periodic migration — moving archives to current formats every decade or so — is part of long-term stewardship. But standard formats buy you the time to do that migration calmly.
My photo app exports HEIC instead of JPEG. Is that okay?
HEIC is a legitimate modern standard with wide support on current devices, though less universal than JPEG. For maximum compatibility, convert HEIC exports to JPEG for your working archive while keeping the HEIC originals — you get compatibility today and quality preserved for tomorrow.
Formats are the fine print of data portability, and now you can read them. The next time you evaluate an app — or the next time a shutdown notice lands — check the export formats before anything else. They tell you, more honestly than any marketing page, how much the company respects your ownership of your own data.