Trac lets you take your data back out — to share it, archive it, or work with it in a spreadsheet. There are two ways to export, depending on what you want:
- One-click exports from Tools — ready-made exports of your activities, portfolio items, or owners.
- Exports from the Explorer — export exactly the table you’ve built, with the filters, columns, and sort order you’ve set, as CSV or PDF.
Both are admin features.
One-click exports (Tools)#
Use these when you want a complete export of a whole data type, with no setup.
- Go to the To Review screen (the app’s home/dashboard).
- Tap the Tools button.
- In the Tools dialog, under Export, tap the export you want:
- Activities — the money activity on your holdings (see Activities). This is the export to reach for.
- Portfolio Items — all your holdings.
- All Owners — every owner entity.
The button shows a spinner while Trac prepares the file, then downloads it. The Export section appears only if you have the admin role.
The retired transaction exports#
Trac used to offer two more one-click exports — All Transactions and Asset Transactions — which read Trac’s old transaction archive. Both have been removed.
Nothing had written to that archive since your data moved to the activity model, so its rows had drifted out of step with your holdings: they could point at holdings you had since renamed, moved, or deleted. The file still downloaded, which made it easy to mistake a stale snapshot for a current export.
Export Activities instead. It is the same money activity, kept current, and it comes back as a workbook you can re-import.
Exporting from the Explorer#
The Explorer is the spreadsheet-style grid for browsing and editing your data. Exporting from it gives you full control: you export the table exactly as you’ve arranged it — the same filters, columns, and sort order you’re looking at.
- Open the Explorer and pick the data you want (a tile such as Activities or Portfolio Items, or one of your saved views).
- Set it up: apply filters, choose and arrange columns, and sort by tapping a column header.
- Tap the Export button (the download icon) in the control bar.
- In the Export dialog:
- Enter a File name (it starts with a sensible default for the current view).
- Choose an Export type: CSV or PDF.
- For PDF only, you can turn on Alternating row colors to make the rows easier to read.
- Tap Export (or Cancel to back out).
CSV versus PDF#
- CSV is a plain data file you can open in any spreadsheet app. It carries the data and the column headers from your current view.
- PDF is a formatted document, good for sharing or printing, with the optional alternating-row-color styling.
Either way, the export reflects the table you’ve built — if you’ve filtered to one owner’s holdings and sorted by date, that’s what you get.
Copy to clipboard instead#
If you just want to paste into a spreadsheet, you don’t need to download a file. Tap Copy table (the copy icon) in the Explorer control bar and the visible table goes to your clipboard, ready to paste. Like export, it uses the table as you’ve arranged it.
Round-tripping data#
Because the Explorer and one-click exports use the same field names that batch import expects, an export is a good starting point for a later edit and re-import: export a type, change values in your spreadsheet, add an Update ID column, and import it back to update the existing records rather than create new ones. See Importing data for the import side.
Troubleshooting#
- No Export section in Tools / no Export button in Explorer. Exporting is an admin feature. If you don’t have the admin role, you won’t see these options.
- The export is missing rows or columns. Explorer exports reflect your current view. Check your filters, the columns you’ve shown or hidden, and any header filters before exporting again.
- “Alternating row colors” toggle is missing. That option only appears when the Export type is PDF; it doesn’t apply to CSV.
- The file didn’t download. Make sure your browser isn’t blocking the download, then try the export again.