Exporting your data
Get your analytics out as CSV, or request a full copy of everything in your account.
Reviewed 24 Oct 2026
Which export you need
ShortZen has two main exports and they answer different questions. One gets your daily click totals into a spreadsheet; the other gets a copy of everything in your account. There are smaller exports for what is on screen too, covered further down. Reach for whichever matches what you are actually trying to do.
| Analytics CSV | Full account export | |
|---|---|---|
| Where | The Analytics page | Settings › Account › Data & privacy |
| Contains | Daily click totals for the range you are viewing | Everything in your account |
| Delivery | Downloads in your browser | Prepared in the background, emailed to you as an attachment |
| Use for | Reporting, a spreadsheet, another BI tool | Backup, migration, or a data request |
| Plan | Starter and above | Every plan |
| Limit | One per hour | One per hour |
Analytics CSV
Export from the account-wide Analytics page for everything, or from a single link's page for just that link. The button sits in the toolbar next to the date range. The export follows the window currently on screen: set the range first, then export.
What you get is one row per link per day, not one row per click:
date,link_id,slug,click_count,qr_click_count
2026-03-01,0f5f1c1a-2b8e-4a35-9c1d-6f0a2b7d4e11,spring-sale,412,37
2026-03-02,0f5f1c1a-2b8e-4a35-9c1d-6f0a2b7d4e11,spring-sale,388,29Exporting from a single link's page drops the slug column, since the file is already about that one link. There is no country, device, referrer, or browser column and no individual click rows. For those dimensions, use the breakdown exports below.
CSV export ships with advanced analytics, which starts on the Starter plan. On Free the Export CSV button is there but locked, and the export endpoint refuses the request, so this is the one part of this article a Free workspace cannot use. The full account export below is available on every plan.
Why one per hour
Breakdown and activity exports
Country, device, referrer, and browser figures come out of the panels that display them. The Referrers, Countries, Devices, and Browsers panels on Analytics each carry an Export button, which writes what is on screen straight from your browser: one row per value with its click total. It follows the date range on screen, it does not count against the hourly limit, and it is locked on Free like the Analytics CSV.
Activity has its own: Export loaded rows, on the activity list in Settings and on the workspace audit log. It writes the entries currently loaded on the page rather than the whole history, so press Load more first if you need to go further back than the page you are looking at.
Full account export
Request it from Settings and it is assembled in the background. There is nothing to keep open, and it does not matter how much data you have. When it is ready you get an email with one CSV attached per kind of data: your links and their daily click totals, your profile and preferences, your workspace memberships, your API key details, your notifications, your billing history, your account activity, your support conversations, any cancellation survey you filled in, your uploaded files, and your bio pages.
Treat the file as sensitive
Exporting before you lose data
Analytics history ages out at the end of your plan's retention window and does not come back. Three moments are worth an export:
- At the end of any campaign you will want to reference later.
- Before downgrading: a shorter window applies immediately.
- At each quarter or year end, if you report on this data.
- Analytics history, by plan
- Free 30 · Starter 90 · Pro 365 · Business 730
Step by step
Archive a period of analytics before it ages out
Before you start
- A plan that includes CSV export: Starter and above.
- The period you want still inside your plan's retention window.
- No other export in the last hour.
- Somewhere to keep the file.
Steps
Open Analytics.
Set a custom date range covering the exact period.
Check it against your retention window first: a range that reaches past it is shortened, and the export follows what is shown.
Confirm the page is not showing a shortened-range notice.
If it is, the earliest part of your period has already aged out and cannot be exported.
Export to CSV.
The file downloads.
Open it and check the first and last rows against the dates you asked for.
Thirty seconds here beats discovering the gap in six months.
Store it wherever your team keeps records, named with the period it covers.
What you should see
A dated CSV of that period that will still be readable long after the data has left ShortZen.
How to check it worked
- The file opens in a spreadsheet with the expected columns.
- Its date span matches the range you selected.
- The totals are consistent with what the page showed on screen.
Edge cases
- The Export CSV button is locked.
- Your workspace is on Free. CSV export starts on Starter. The full account export from Settings is still open to you in the meantime.
- You already exported within the last hour.
- Wait. The limit is per hour, not per day.
- You need country, device, referrer, or browser figures.
- The Analytics CSV carries daily totals only. Use the Export button on the panel for that dimension instead.
- You need one link rather than the whole workspace.
- Export from that link's own analytics page. The Analytics page export is account-wide.
- You need this every month without thinking about it.
- Use the REST API from a scheduled job. That is what it is for.
If something goes wrong
- The download did not start.
- Check your browser did not block it, then try once more. If the hourly limit has been reached you will be told.
- The export covers less than you asked for.
- The range exceeded your retention window. What is missing has already been deleted and cannot be recovered. Export earlier next time.
- The full-export email did not arrive.
- Check spam, and check the email on your account is current. Exports are prepared in the background and can take a while for a large account.