How to export your Goodreads library (and bring it to Storyfeel)

Leaving Goodreads does not mean starting from zero. Goodreads lets you download your whole library as a single file, and most reading apps can read it. It takes about five minutes. This guide covers the export, what the file contains, how to import it into Storyfeel, and what is worth doing afterwards.

Step 1: export your library from Goodreads

1. Use a computer. The Goodreads app cannot export. On a phone, open goodreads.com in the browser and ask for the desktop site.
2. Sign in and open My Books.
3. In the left column, under Tools, choose Import and export.
4. Click Export Library. Goodreads prepares a fresh copy, which can take a few minutes for a big library. When it is ready, a link with the date appears on the same page (reload the page if it does not).
5. Click the link to download the file. It is a CSV: a plain table with one line per book.

Exporting does not change or delete anything on Goodreads: your account, shelves and reviews stay as they are. Keep the file somewhere safe, because it is your whole reading history in one place. If you open it in a spreadsheet to look at it, close it without saving: spreadsheets like to rewrite dates and ISBNs.

Step 2: import it into Storyfeel

1. Create your account or sign in. A phone is fine for this part: the import only needs the file.
2. If your library is empty, the welcome screen has an Import from Goodreads button. Otherwise go to Settings → Data management → Import from Goodreads.
3. Choose the CSV you downloaded.
4. Before anything is saved, you see every book in the file with its shelf, stars and date. Books already in your library are marked Already exists and skipped; untick the box if you want them anyway.
5. Click Import. Storyfeel then looks for the covers, with a progress bar, and you can choose Carry on in the background and keep using the app. After the covers, it fills in the page count and the full first-publication date for up to 30 books that came without them.

What comes across

• Your shelves. Read becomes Completed, Currently Reading becomes Reading and Want to Read goes to your TBR. A shelf for books you gave up on, such as dnf, did-not-finish or abandoned, becomes DNF, also when it is a tag on a book marked as read. Any other shelf of your own counts as Completed if the book has a read date, and as TBR if it does not.
• Your stars, exactly as you gave them.
• The date you finished each book.
• Your review, which becomes the book's summary. In Storyfeel it is encrypted like the rest of your diary.
• Pages, publication year and ISBN. The ISBN helps find the right cover.
• Series. Goodreads writes the series inside the title, as in Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2). The title comes across whole, so nothing is lost, and Storyfeel ignores that tail when it looks for covers or checks for duplicates.

What stays behind

• Genres. The Goodreads file has none, so every book arrives as Fiction. Change it on the book card as you go; there are more than fifty to choose from.
• Start dates. Goodreads only exports the date you finished.
• Rereads, private notes and your other shelves. They are in the file but are not imported. If a shelf matters to you, rebuild it as a Collection.
• Everything social: friends, followers, comments, likes and groups. Storyfeel has no social side, so there is nowhere for them to go.
• Kindle highlights. They are not in the Goodreads export. Storyfeel imports them straight from your Kindle or Kobo instead.

On the free plan

The whole file is imported, however big it is. The free plan keeps 20 books in your library and 20 on your TBR open; the rest are saved, locked, and open the moment you subscribe ($4.99/month or $49.90/year). Books you already had stay open first. Nothing is ever deleted for reaching a limit.

After the import: three things worth doing

1. Check your DNF and TBR. If you used shelves of your own on Goodreads, a quick look tells you whether every book landed where you expect.
2. Add feelings to the books you remember best. This is the part Goodreads never had: a quote, a line about how the ending left you, a colour for the feeling. Start with your favourites.
3. Bring your highlights. If you read on a Kindle or a Kobo, import your highlights and give each one the feeling it carries.

Questions

Can I import again later?

Yes. Export a new file from Goodreads and import it: books you already have are recognised and skipped, so only the new ones are added. Books already in Storyfeel are not changed.

Can I do it all from my phone?

The import, yes. The export needs the Goodreads desktop website, which you can open from your phone's browser.

Should I delete my Goodreads account afterwards?

That is up to you, and there is no hurry. Exporting copies your library; it does not move it. Plenty of people keep both for a while.

Not sure yet where to go? Read our comparison of private Goodreads alternatives, or try Storyfeel free.