Airtable's export lives in one place: a view's overflow menu, Download CSV. That is the whole feature. It exports the view you are looking at, in the field order of that view, as a CSV file.
For a single table that is fine. For a base with a dozen tables it means a dozen downloads, a dozen files in your Downloads folder, and then a manual assembly job in Excel.
What the CSV route costs you
One file per view, not per base
There is no base-level export. If you want the whole base you repeat the download for each table — and you have to remember to pick a view that shows all records and all fields, otherwise you quietly export a filtered subset.
Encoding
Airtable writes UTF-8. Excel on Windows, double-clicking a .csv, assumes the system code page. That is why Montréal arrives as Montréal. The fix is to import through Data → From Text/CSV and set the encoding by hand, every time, for every file.
Type loss
CSV has one type: text. Dates come out in whatever string form the view showed, numbers keep their thousands separators, and Excel then re-guesses all of it on open — which is how a part number like 03-2026 becomes a March date.
Linked records and multi-selects
Both flatten into comma-separated text in a single cell. That is usually acceptable, but worth knowing before you build a pivot on top of it.
Rule of thumb: if the export is going to a human who will read it, CSV is fine. If it is going into a workbook someone will keep working in, export to .xlsx and skip the re-parsing entirely.
Exporting the whole base in one file
The Airtable → Excel tool reads every table in a base through the API and writes a single .xlsx workbook with one sheet per table.
- Sign in with your Airtable account.
- Pick the base. All of its tables are exported — you do not select them one at a time.
- Run the export and open the resulting workbook.
Because the output is a real spreadsheet file rather than text, encoding is not a question and Excel does not re-guess your columns on open. Attachment fields are excluded — a cell cannot hold a file — so if you need the files as well, run the bulk attachment download alongside it.
Airtable → Excel
Every table in a base, exported to one .xlsx workbook with one sheet per table. No per-view downloads, no encoding surprises.
Open the exporter →If the export is for a migration
Spreadsheet data is only half of a base. The other half is the structure: which fields exist, what type each one is, which tables link to which. That does not survive a CSV or an .xlsx export, and it is exactly what you need when rebuilding the base somewhere else — see exporting an Airtable base schema.
Frequently asked
- Can Airtable export directly to Excel?
- No. Airtable's built-in export produces a CSV file, and it exports one view at a time rather than the whole base. Excel can open a CSV, but you get one sheet per download and no formatting or type information.
- How do I export all tables in an Airtable base at once?
- There is no native action for it — you have to download each view separately, or use the API to read every table. The TrilogicPPP Airtable to Excel tool reads all tables in a base and writes them into one .xlsx workbook, one sheet per table.
- Why are my accented characters broken after a CSV export?
- Airtable exports UTF-8, but Excel on Windows opens a .csv with the legacy system code page unless you import it through Data > From Text. Exporting to .xlsx instead avoids the problem entirely, because the encoding is part of the file format.
- Are attachments included in the Excel export?
- No. Attachment columns are excluded, because a spreadsheet cell cannot hold a file. To get the files themselves, use the Bulk Attachment Downloader, which exports them as a structured ZIP.
- Does it export views or tables?
- Tables, with all their records. Filters and groupings that exist only on a view are not applied.