How to export your Goodreads library (including on iPhone)

Goodreads lets you download your whole library, meaning every book you've shelved, rated or reviewed, as a single spreadsheet file. It's your data and worth having a copy of regardless. You also need it to use tools like Match Book, since Goodreads closed its public API to new developers in 2020 and the export is now the only way to take your reading history anywhere else.

The export is easy on a computer and awkward on a phone, because the Goodreads app doesn't include it. Both routes are below.

On a computer

1. Sign in at goodreads.com and click My Books in the top bar.
2. In the left-hand column, scroll down to the Tools section and click Import and export.
3. Click the Export Library button at the top of the page.
4. Wait. For a big library it can take a minute or two, and the page may need a refresh. When it's ready, a link appears underneath, labelled with the export date.
5. Click the link to download a file called something like goodreads_library_export.csv.

On an iPhone

The Goodreads app has no export option, so you need to use the website in Safari:

1. Open goodreads.com in Safari and sign in.
2. If the page is the mobile version and you can't find the tools, tap the aA icon in the address bar and choose Request Desktop Website.
3. Follow the computer steps above: My Books, then Import and export, then Export Library.
4. Tap the export link when it appears. Safari saves the file to Downloads in the Files app.

The Match Book app walks through this with you step by step, and opens the right Goodreads page directly, so you don't have to hunt for the menu.

What's in the file

The export is a CSV, a plain spreadsheet with one row per book. You can open it in Numbers, Excel or Google Sheets. The columns that matter most:

• Title and Author, which are Goodreads' own spellings, series tags and all. For example, “Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)”.
• My Rating: your stars, 1 to 5. Zero means you didn't rate it.
• Average Rating: the Goodreads community average.
• Exclusive Shelf: read, currently-reading or to-read.
• Bookshelves: any custom shelves you've made.
• Date Read and Date Added.
• ISBN and ISBN13. These often look odd, like ="9780316129084", because Goodreads wraps them to stop spreadsheets mangling the leading zeros. Tools that read the file strip the wrapper.
• Number of Pages, Year Published, My Review and a few more.

What you can do with it

Even on its own, the export is a small dataset about you: years of choices and judgements in one table. Sort by rating and look at your five-stars side by side and you'll probably see a pattern you hadn't noticed. The guide to finding your reading taste in your ratings shows how to analyse it properly.

Or hand it to Match Book. The app reads the file on your phone, describes your favourites across fifteen dimensions, draws your taste as a web, and finds books that fit it. Your library stays on your device; there's no Match Book account and no Match Book server. To analyse the books, the app sends book details to OpenAI under your own key, and only after showing you exactly what will be sent and asking first. The full detail is in the privacy policy.