How to Export Shopify Orders to Excel (and Open the CSV Correctly)
Shopify's built-in order export step by step: filters, columns, email limits, and how to open the CSV in Excel without broken characters, lost zeros or wrong dates.
In this guide
Shopify does not export orders as an Excel workbook. It exports a CSV file, and Excel opens it. Most of the problems people run into, such as garbled names, ZIP codes without their leading zero or dates that flip day and month, happen in that second step, not in Shopify.
This guide covers both halves: how to get the right orders out of Shopify, and how to open the file in Excel so the data stays the way Shopify wrote it.
Step 1: Filter the orders list first
Shopify’s export follows what you have selected or filtered on the Orders page. Before you click Export, narrow the list down:
- Date. Pick the range you need, such as last month for a sales review.
- Payment status. Paid, unpaid, refunded and so on.
- Fulfillment status. For example, only unfulfilled orders for a picking run.
- Tags, channel or other filters your team already uses.
Shopify’s help center describes this in Exporting orders: sort and filter your orders, then export.
Step 2: Choose what to export
On the Orders page, click Export. In the Export orders window you choose which orders to include and, under Export as, the file format. Then you have two buttons:
- Export orders downloads all order information.
- Export transaction histories exports only transaction information, such as payment method, gateway, kind (sale, refund, authorization), status and amount.
How the file reaches you depends on the size of the export:
| You export | What happens |
|---|---|
| Up to 50 orders, or the current page | The CSV downloads to your device |
| A larger selection, or orders by date | The CSV is emailed to you and the store owner |
| An export that fails | You receive an email saying so |
Large exports take time. Shopify gives examples: an export with fewer than 100,000 items might finish in under an hour, and around 400,000 items can take about four hours. If you are waiting on the email, check the spam folder before running the export again.
What the order CSV contains
Shopify’s export is wide. According to the help center, it includes these groups of columns:
| Group | Example columns |
|---|---|
| Order | Name (order number), Id, Created at, Tags, Source, Risk Level |
| Status | Financial Status, Paid at, Fulfillment Status, Fulfilled at, Canceled at |
| Money | Currency, Subtotal, Shipping, Taxes, Total, Discount Code, Discount Amount, Refunded Amount |
| Line items | Lineitem quantity, name, price, compare-at price, SKU, requires shipping, taxable, fulfillment status, discount, Vendor |
| Taxes | Tax 1 Name / Tax 1 Value, up to five line taxes |
| Addresses | Billing and Shipping name, street, address 1 and 2, company, city, ZIP, province, country, phone |
| Notes | Notes, Note Attributes |
| Payments | Payment Method, Payment References, Payment ID |
| POS | Employee, Location, Device ID |
Three things about this layout catch people out:
- One order can take several rows. An order with three products appears on three lines. The first line carries the order details and totals; the extra lines carry the other line items and leave many order fields blank. If you sum the Total column you get the right answer, but if you filter to one product you lose the totals. Our guide to one row per line item covers how to work with that layout.
- Line-item properties are not columns. Engraving text, gift messages and upload links that customers enter on the product page are not in the standard export. See exporting orders with line-item properties if you need them.
- It reflects the order at the time it was placed. Shopify notes, for example, that a compare-at price changed later does not update past orders.
Step 3: Open the CSV in Excel without damaging it
Double-clicking a CSV lets Excel guess the type of every column. That guess is where data gets damaged. Importing the file instead lets you tell Excel what each column is.
Use Data > From Text/CSV
- Open a blank workbook.
- Go to Data > From Text/CSV and choose the file.
- In the preview, check the delimiter (comma for Shopify’s export) and the file origin or encoding. Choose UTF-8 if names with accents look wrong.
- Click Transform Data (or Edit) to open Power Query.
- Select the columns that must stay as text, then set Data Type > Text and choose Replace current.
- Click Close & Load.
Microsoft documents these steps in Keeping leading zeros and large numbers.
Columns to set as text
| Column | Why |
|---|---|
| Billing Zip, Shipping Zip | ZIP and postal codes such as 02134 lose the leading zero as numbers |
| Phone, Billing Phone, Shipping Phone | Leading zeros and + prefixes get dropped or turned into formulas |
| Lineitem SKU | SKUs like 00125 or 1E5 can turn into numbers or scientific notation |
| Id, Payment ID | Long identifiers should never be rounded; Excel keeps only 15 significant digits |
Microsoft notes that Excel has a maximum precision of 15 significant digits, so any longer number typed or imported as a number has its extra digits replaced with zeros. Formatting the column afterwards does not bring them back. Set the type during import.
Garbled characters
If Müller shows up as Müller, Excel read a UTF-8 file with the wrong encoding. Shopify’s help center says the order CSV must be UTF-8 encoded if you ever edit it in a text editor, so re-import through From Text/CSV and pick UTF-8 as the file origin rather than fixing names by hand.
Dates that look wrong
Columns such as Created at (when the customer completed the order), Paid at and Fulfilled at hold a date and a time. Excel may keep them as text, or read 03/04 as 3 April or 4 March depending on your regional settings. Look at a few rows before you build anything on them. If you need to group by day, keep the original column and add a helper column that extracts the date part and converts it with Excel’s date functions. The original stays intact for anyone who needs the exact time.
Commas and semicolons
In many European locales Excel expects semicolons as the list separator. A comma-separated file opened by double-click then lands in a single column. Importing through From Text/CSV and choosing Comma as the delimiter fixes this without changing system settings.
Step 4: Save as a workbook before you edit
Once the data looks right, use File > Save As and choose Excel Workbook (.xlsx). Saving back to CSV throws away column types, formulas and formatting, and the next person who opens it goes through the same problems again.
A simple routine that saves time:
- Keep the original CSV untouched in a dated folder, such as
orders-2026-10.csv. - Do your filtering, pivots and notes in an
.xlsxcopy. - If you rebuild the same report every week, record the Power Query steps once. Data > Refresh reapplies them when you point the query at a new file.
Pitfalls checklist
- Filtered the orders list before exporting, not after
- Checked whether you need Export orders or Export transaction histories
- Waited for the email instead of exporting twice for large ranges
- Imported via From Text/CSV, not double-click
- Set ZIP, phone, SKU and ID columns to Text during import
- Remembered that multi-item orders span several rows
- Saved the working copy as
.xlsx
When the built-in export is not enough
The standard export is fine for a monthly review or a quick look at sales. Teams usually outgrow it when:
- The same cleanup happens every week. Deleting thirty columns, renaming headers and fixing types is a sign you need a saved column layout.
- Customer-entered details are missing. Production teams need line-item properties as their own columns. Our post on packing lists and production sheets goes through that use case.
- The accountant wants a different shape. One row per order with taxes, discounts, refunds and payment gateways is easier to reconcile. See an order export your accountant can use.
- Several people run the export. When the file feeds another system, every run needs the same columns in the same order. That is the same discipline as a product CSV import: a stable layout prevents surprises.
If the export is a step in a bigger workflow, such as tagging and fulfilling the same orders afterwards, our guide to bulk fulfilling and tagging orders covers the next step.
Exporting orders to Excel with StoreFleet: Order Export
StoreFleet: Order Export is a Shopify app, currently in review for the Shopify App Store, that exports orders to CSV or Excel (XLSX). You choose and order the columns in a reusable template, filter by date range, payment status, fulfillment status and tags, and pick one row per order or one row per line item. Each line-item property gets its own column, CSV files are written as UTF-8 with a comma or semicolon delimiter, and the date format can match your Excel locale. The file is built in your browser.
FAQ
Can Shopify export orders directly as an .xlsx file?
No. Shopify’s order export produces a CSV file. Excel opens it, but for reliable results import it with Data > From Text/CSV and then save your working copy as an Excel workbook.
Why did I get an email instead of a download?
Shopify downloads the file directly only when you export up to 50 orders or the current page. Larger exports, and exports by date, are emailed to you and the store owner.
Why are ZIP codes missing their leading zero?
Excel treated the column as a number when it opened the CSV. Import the file through From Text/CSV and set the ZIP, phone and SKU columns to Text before loading the data.
Does the export include engraving text or other custom fields?
The order CSV includes the order note and note attributes, but line-item properties such as engraving text are not columns in the standard export. You need a tool that reads them from each line item.
Why does one order appear on several rows?
Each line item gets its own row. The first row of the order holds the totals and order details, and the following rows list the remaining items with many order fields left blank.