A practical guide to Zendesk data export in 2025

Trying to get your data out of Zendesk? This guide covers the good, the bad, and the ugly of native tools, APIs, and automated solutions. We'll also show you how to use your data without the export headache.

Your practical guide to Zendesk data export in 2025

So, you need to pull your data from Zendesk. It’s a pretty common task. Maybe you're switching to a new platform, finally setting up a proper backup, or you want to run some deep analysis on your support history. Whatever your reason, you’ve probably figured out by now that it’s rarely a simple, one-click job.

If you're feeling a bit stuck, you're not alone. Many teams, especially those with years of ticket history, find the whole process complicated, slow, and surprisingly limited.

This guide is here to walk you through the main ways you can export your data. We'll look at the pros, cons, and the hidden headaches that come with each method so you can make the right call.

But before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's pause for a second. Why are you exporting your data in the first place? If the goal is to train an AI, for example, there might be a much easier way. We'll also explore a modern alternative that lets you use your historical data for powerful AI for Customer Support Automation, skipping the massive export project you were probably dreading.

What is a Zendesk data export?

A Zendesk data export is just the process of pulling all your support information, tickets, user profiles, company info, and every customer conversation, out of the Zendesk platform.

You'll usually get this data in one of three flavors:

• CSV: Stands for Comma-Separated Values. This is the format you’d use for spreadsheets like Excel or Google Sheets. It's simple, but as you'll see, it often leaves important stuff behind.

• JSON: This is a structured format that's perfect for developers or for feeding data into other applications. It’s more complete than CSV.

• XML: Another structured format, kind of like JSON, though it's not as common for new tools these days.

Companies do this for all sorts of reasons, but a huge one is to get a complete history of customer conversations. That data is incredibly valuable, it tells you what your customers struggle with, how your agents are performing, and, most importantly, it's the perfect training material for AI systems that can help automate future support.

Method 1: Using Zendesk's native tools

The most obvious place to start is with the tools built right into the Zendesk Admin Center. It sounds simple enough, but a lot of people hit a roadblock right away.

First off, the export feature isn't even turned on by default. The account owner has to contact Zendesk Customer Support and ask them to enable it. For many, this is the first surprise in what they hoped would be a quick task. It's a security measure, which is fair, but it’s still a hurdle.

Export formats: CSV, JSON, and XML

Once you have access, Zendesk gives you a few choices. The best one for you depends on how much data you have and what you're planning to do with it.

Here’s a quick rundown:

Limitations of native Zendesk data exports

While using the built-in tools is convenient, the limitations can be a real problem. Here’s what you’re up against:

• It depends on your plan: The easiest export options are usually only available on higher-tier plans like Support Professional and Enterprise. If you're on a less expensive plan, you might not have access at all.

• You don't get everything: This is the big one. The simple CSV export leaves out the most valuable context: the actual conversations happening in the ticket comments and any attachments. If you want to analyze that rich data or use it to train an AI, this missing information makes the export pretty much useless.

• It’s slow: Grab a coffee... or three. If you have a large account with millions of tickets, you could be waiting a long time. People report that it can take hours, sometimes even days, to get the export file. That can seriously disrupt your workflow.

• There are strict size limits: The ticket count and file size limits aren't flexible. If you're a big, established support team, it's very easy to hit the 200,000-ticket limit for XML or the 1MB-per-ticket limit for JSON and CSV.

Method 2: Using the Zendesk API for data export

If the native tools feel like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, the Zendesk API is your custom-built toolkit. It's the most powerful and flexible method, but be warned: this is the "roll up your sleeves and call in a developer" route.

Why use the API for a Zendesk data export?

Using the API is really the only way to get a complete, customized dataset without any compromises.

• Total control: The API lets you pull exactly what you need. You can filter by date range, agent group, tags, or any custom fields you've created.

• All the data: This is the only way to reliably get everything. With the right code, you can pull every ticket, every comment, every attachment, and all the user data, then piece it all together yourself.

Challenges of using the API for data export

That level of control comes with some big challenges that teams often underestimate.

• You need a developer: This isn't a task for your support manager. You'll need a developer or data engineer who knows their way around code (probably Python) and can build and maintain a script.

• It costs time and money: Building a script to handle a massive export isn't a small job. It means writing code, adding logic to handle errors, and figuring out where you're going to store all that data. This isn't a weekend project; it can easily take weeks or even months of a developer's time, which gets expensive fast.

• Annoying API rate limits: This is a huge bottleneck.

  

  As you'll find people complaining about on Reddit, exporting millions of tickets can take days or even weeks of non-stop API calls.

  Reddit
  Zendesk limits how many requests you can make per minute. If you hit that limit, you get temporarily blocked, so your script needs to be smart enough to pause and pick up where it left off.

• The data is messy: The API doesn't just give you one big, clean file. It delivers data in "pages," so your script has to ask for a chunk of data, process it, then ask for the next chunk, over and over again. You also have to make separate requests for tickets, comments, and users, and then figure out how to join it all together correctly. It's a complicated puzzle.

Method 3: Using third-party tools for data export

Because the first two options have such clear trade-offs, a whole industry of third-party tools has popped up to fill the gap. These platforms are designed to solve the exact problems we've been talking about, offering a nice balance between power and ease of use. They usually fall into a few categories:

• ETL/Data pipeline tools: These are built to move data from a system like Zendesk to a data warehouse.

• Migration services: These are companies that specialize in helping you move from Zendesk to another help desk.

• Direct integration platforms: These tools connect right to your data source to add new features, like AI integration for Zendesk customer service, without you ever having to move the data.

A different approach: Use your data without exporting it

This brings us back to that first question: why are you exporting your data? If your goal is to use your old tickets to power support automation, a full export is often a painful and unnecessary step.

Platforms like eesel AI connect directly with your help desk, which means you can skip the manual Zendesk data export completely. Instead of pulling everything out, eesel AI securely connects to your Zendesk instance and uses the data right where it lives.

Here’s how this approach avoids all the common headaches:

• Connect in one click: You can link eesel AI to your Zendesk account in a few minutes. There's no complicated API project or waiting around for a developer to build something from scratch.

• Your AI starts learning instantly: Instead of a long export-and-upload cycle, eesel AI’s agent can analyze your past tickets directly inside Zendesk. It learns your brand voice, common customer issues, and what a good resolution looks like, all from day one.

• Go live in minutes, not months: A custom API export project can drag on for months. With a direct integration, you can have a working AI agent or an AI agent assist tool helping your team the very same day.

• Test without the risk: Worried about letting an AI talk to your customers? You can use eesel AI’s simulation mode to test it on thousands of your past tickets first. You can see exactly how it would have replied and get a clear forecast of its resolution rate, giving you total peace of mind before you turn it on.

Understanding costs: Zendesk pricing and data exports

Access to Zendesk's simplest export features is tied directly to how much you pay them. If you're on a lower-tier plan, you'll find that the option to export just isn't there.

Here’s how it breaks down across the main Zendesk Support pricing explained in 2025:

So if you're on the Suite Team plan, your only built-in option is the expensive and complicated API route. This often makes a third-party tool a much more sensible and affordable choice.

Rethinking your Zendesk data export plan

So, what’s the takeaway here? When it comes to getting your data out of Zendesk, you’ve got a few paths, and each comes with its own set of pros and cons.

• Zendesk's native exports are handy if you're on the right plan, but they're often held back by incomplete data and slow speeds.

• The Zendesk API gives you full control but demands a serious investment in developer time and money.

• Third-party tools offer a good middle ground, but you need to pick one that actually helps you achieve your end goal.

For teams looking to use their data for AI and automation, the old "export-then-train" model is starting to look outdated. Platforms like eesel AI that offer a direct, secure integration give you a faster, cheaper, and more powerful way to automate your support.

Why spend weeks wrestling with a complex data export when you can put your Zendesk data to its full potential, without the massive headache of an export project?