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Zendesk Export Tickets: Four Routes Out

There are four ways to make Zendesk export tickets. Which one you want depends on how much data you need, and on how often you'll need it again.

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The four ways to make Zendesk export tickets

A view, exported to CSV. Fastest for a one-off list. It's limited to the columns on the view and capped in size, so it suits a slice rather than a history.
The account export tool. For a full export of tickets, users and organizations. It runs as a background job and emails you a link when it's done. On a large account, that can be hours.
Explore. Best when you want a shaped report rather than raw rows. It'll also schedule to email on a recurring basis.
The API. The right answer for anything recurring or large. Use the incremental export endpoints rather than paging the search API, which is rate limited and won't enumerate everything.

Things that go wrong

Comments aren't in the basic ticket export. Want the conversation? You need the comments endpoint, or a full account export.
Deleted and archived tickets behave differently. Tickets closed for more than 120 days are archived, and archived tickets are excluded from some searches. Export looks short? This is usually why.
Rate limits. Plan for them on any API export. Use incremental exports with a cursor rather than brute-forcing pages and you'll mostly stay out of trouble.
Custom fields come out as IDs. Export the field definitions too, or your spreadsheet's just a wall of numbers.

While you are in there, count the duplicates

An export is a good moment to measure something almost nobody measures. Sort by requester and created date. Then look for the same person appearing twice within a few hours, which is easier to spot in a spreadsheet than it ever is in a queue.

Filter on the closed_by_merge tag as well. That shows you how many duplicates your team has already caught by hand. The gap between that number and the pairs you can see in the export is the duplicate problem nobody's handling.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can I export Zendesk tickets with comments?

Not from a view CSV. You'll need a full account export, or pull the comments through the API.

Why are old tickets missing from my export?

They're archived. Tickets closed for over 120 days are, and archived tickets get excluded from some search-based exports. Use the incremental export endpoints instead.

Count the duplicates while you're there

Or connect Ticket Merger and get the number without the spreadsheet.

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