How to export everything out of Sortly

Sortly gives you three ways to get your inventory out, and they do not contain the same things. One of them is a complete copy of your data. One is a report. One is a printout. This page goes through each file column by column, so you know what you are holding before you cancel anything.

It describes the files rather than the buttons. Sortly's menus get rearranged; the files they produce have been stable for years, and every column name below is copied from real exports.

Do this while the subscription is still active

Export first, cancel second. Once an account is closed or downgraded past its item limit, the export may no longer be available to you, and the photo links inside an old export point at Sortly's servers, not at your own copies. Give yourself an afternoon, not the last hour of the billing period.

Before you start, write down three numbers from inside the app: how many items you have, how many folders, and roughly how many photos. You will check the file against them at the end.

Route 1: the bulk export. This is the one to keep

The bulk export is a spreadsheet, CSV or XLSX, with one row per entry. It is the only route that carries the whole account: the folder tree, the custom fields, the variants, the barcodes and the photo references. Here is the full header row from a real export, in order:

Entry Name, SID, Item Group Name,
Attribute 1 Name, Attribute 1 Option, Attribute 2 Name, Attribute 2 Option, Attribute 3 Name, Attribute 3 Option,
Quantity, Unit, Min Level, Price, Value, Notes, Tags,
Primary Folder, Subfolder-level1, Subfolder-level2, Subfolder-level3, Subfolder-level4,
Photo1, Photo2, Photo3, Photo4, Photo5, Photo6, Photo7, Photo8,
Barcode/QR1-Data, Barcode/QR1-Type, Barcode/QR2-Data, Barcode/QR2-Type

What each group means:

• Entry Name and SID. The item's name and Sortly's own ID for it. Older exports also carry an Entry Type column that says Item or Folder, one row per folder; newer ones drop it and describe folders through the path columns instead.
• Item Group Name and the three Attribute pairs. Variants. A shirt that comes in three sizes is one group with Size as an attribute name and Large as the option, one row per variant.
• Quantity, Unit, Min Level, Price, Value. Quantity and its unit are separate columns, so "40 bags" is 40 and bags. Value is computed by Sortly as quantity times price; it is not something you entered, and you do not need to import it anywhere.
• Tags. One cell, comma separated: organic, spring.
• Primary Folder and Subfolder-level1 to 4. The folder tree, flattened. An item in Barn / Shelf A has Barn in Primary Folder and Shelf A in Subfolder-level1. Four levels is the ceiling of what the export can describe.
• Photo1 to Photo8. Up to eight photos per item, as links. More on this below, because it is the part people get wrong.
• Barcode/QR1 and QR2. Two barcodes per item, each with its data and its type. The type is spelled out, for example org.gs1.EAN-13, which is what lets another system re-encode the same code correctly.
• Any column not listed here is one of your custom fields. Sortly appends them after the standard columns, under the names you gave them.

Sortly's own published import template uses the same columns, which is worth knowing: a bulk export from one Sortly account can be imported into another, and it is what most other inventory tools have learned to read.

Route 2: the Inventory Summary report

This is a report, not a backup. It is one flat table with these columns:

ITEM NAME, ITEM ID / SKU, MANUFACTURER, VENDOR, DESCRIPTION, ITEM VALUE, QUANTITY, TOTAL VALUE,
REORDER POINT, LEAD TIME, BARCODE / QR CODE, LOCATION, NOTES

It is useful for an accountant or an insurer: name, SKU, quantity, unit value and total value per line, all in one place. What it does not carry is the reason you would want a backup. There are no photos, the folder tree is collapsed to a single LOCATION text, there is one barcode instead of two and no barcode type, no tags, no variants and no custom fields. If this is the only file you take with you, you have lost most of what made the account yours.

Take it as well, not instead.

Route 3: the PDF, and the Dropbox option for photos

Sortly can produce a PDF of a folder or of the whole inventory. It is a printout. It is fine to hand to somebody who will never open a spreadsheet, and it cannot be imported into anything, including back into Sortly. Do not treat it as your copy of the data.

There is also a Dropbox export. It matters for exactly one reason: it is the route that gives you the photos as image files rather than as links. If your photos are the valuable part of the account (serial-number plates, condition shots, anything you would need in a dispute), use it in addition to the bulk export.

The photos come out as links, not files

In the bulk export, each Photo column holds a URL on Sortly's servers. A real one looks like this:

https://lnk.sortly.co/v2/downloads/photo/v2_...

Those links resolve for as long as Sortly chooses to serve them. They are not files on your disk, and a spreadsheet full of them is not a photo backup. You have two ways to make it one. Either import the file into a tool that fetches every photo URL and stores its own copy, or use the Dropbox route above to pull the image files down yourself. Do whichever you prefer, but do it before the account closes, because afterwards the links are all you have.

Four things that go wrong with the file

1. Excel turns barcodes into scientific notation. Open a CSV by double-clicking and a 12-digit EAN becomes 6.89E+11, and the original digits are gone the moment you save. Import the CSV through Excel's text import with the barcode columns set to Text, or use the XLSX export, or open the CSV in a text editor to confirm the digits are intact before touching it.
2. The CSV starts with an invisible byte order mark. Some tools read the first header as Entry Name instead of Entry Name and fail to match it. If an importer says it cannot find the name column, this is usually why.
3. Quantity and unit are two columns. A tool expecting "40 bags" in one cell will read 40 and ignore the unit. Check the Unit column made it across.
4. Custom fields are only as consistent as you were. A field typed as Warranty Expiry on one item and Warranty expiry on another is two columns in the export. Skim the header row for near-duplicates before importing anywhere.

Check the file before you cancel

• Row count matches the item count you wrote down at the start, allowing for one row per variant.
• Every folder you expect appears somewhere in Primary Folder or the Subfolder columns.
• Barcode columns still contain digits, not E+11.
• Photo columns contain links, and the count of non-empty cells is roughly your photo count.
• Your custom fields appear as columns, under the names you expect.
• You have the photos as files, either through the Dropbox route or through an import that fetched them.

If all of that is true, you are holding a complete copy of your inventory that does not depend on Sortly. Now cancel.

What this page does not cover

It does not give click paths inside Sortly, because those change and a wrong one is worse than none. It also has not tested the Dropbox export end to end on a large account; the statement that it produces image files rather than links comes from Sortly's own description of the feature. If you have run it on a few thousand photos and it behaved differently, write to [email protected] and this page gets corrected.

FlatStock reads Sortly's bulk export directly, fetches every photo link and stores its own copy, and exports back to the same CSV at any time, including after a subscription ends. More about FlatStock.