By Mehdi HassanHow do you export all content from Webflow CMS?
You export all content from Webflow CMS by exporting each collection separately, either as a CSV from the Designer's CMS panel or through the Webflow Data API. Then you download every image the export refers to, because Webflow only gives you their URLs.
There's no one-click export of a whole Webflow site with its content. Static pages, CMS collections, assets and settings all come out through different routes, and some, such as interactions and page settings, don't come out at all. This guide covers the CMS and its assets, which is the part you need for a migration. For the full pipeline, from audit to import, see our guide to CMS content migration.
What can and can't you export from Webflow?
You can export CMS items, their field values and the URLs of their assets. You can't export interactions or CMS template designs as anything reusable, and form submissions and redirects come out through separate routes, not with your content.
What | Export route | What you get |
|---|---|---|
CMS collection items | CSV export per collection | One row per item, one column per field |
CMS items with IDs and drafts | Data API | JSON with item IDs, references and status |
Images and files | URLs in the export | Links to Webflow's CDN, not files |
Static pages | Code export or a crawl | HTML and CSS without CMS content |
Redirects | Copy from hosting settings | Your old redirect rules, by hand |
Form submissions | Forms panel CSV export | Submissions per form |
Webflow's code export is often mistaken for a backup. It gives you static HTML, CSS and JavaScript for your pages, but not your CMS items as data, so it won't help you import content into a new CMS.
How do you export a Webflow CMS collection as a CSV?
Open the CMS panel in the Designer, select the collection, and use the export option to download a CSV of every item. Repeat for each collection. Webflow documents this on its export content as a CSV page.
List your collections
Write down every collection, including small ones like authors, categories and team members, and which collections reference which.
Export each collection
In the CMS panel, open the collection and export it to CSV. Name files clearly, for example posts.csv and authors.csv.
Check the columns
Open each file and confirm every field is present: name, slug, rich text, images, references, dates and SEO fields.
Note reference values
Look at how reference and multi-reference fields appear in your file, and plan to map them to the referenced items' slugs.
Export form submissions
If you need lead history, export submissions from the forms panel separately before you cancel the plan.
Store the originals
Keep the untouched CSVs as a backup. Do all cleaning on copies.
When should you use the Webflow API instead of CSV?
Use the Webflow Data API when you have many items, rich text with images, references between collections, or you want to automate the export so you can rerun it. CSV is fine for a one-off export of small, flat collections.
The API returns each item as JSON with its ID, slug, field values and publish status. That makes it easier to rebuild references reliably, export drafts if you need them, and run the export again just before launch to catch content edited during the project.
- Authentication: create an API token in your site settings with read access to CMS content.
- Collections: list the site's collections, then page through each collection's items.
- References: item references come back as IDs. Build a lookup from ID to slug for each collection.
- Rate limits: Webflow limits requests per minute, so add pauses to scripts for large collections.
If you're moving to a headless CMS, the API route usually pays off, because you'll be writing an import script on the other side anyway. Our guide to moving from Webflow CMS to a headless CMS covers that path.
How do you download and re-host Webflow CDN images?
Find every Webflow asset URL in your exports, download each file, upload it to your new storage or CMS, and replace the old URLs with the new ones. Do this for image fields and for images embedded inside rich-text HTML.
Collect URLs
Scan every CSV or JSON export for Webflow asset URLs, both in image columns and inside rich-text HTML.
Download files
Download each unique file, keeping the original filename where you can so it's still recognizable.
Upload to the new home
Upload to the new CMS's media library or your own storage, and record each new URL.
Build a URL map
Keep a two-column list of old URL and new URL for every asset.
Rewrite the exports
Replace every old URL with its new one in image fields and rich text, then search for leftovers.
Why images matter for SEO, not just for looks
Images carry alt text, file names and sometimes image search traffic. If you re-host files, keep the alt text from the export and add it where it's missing.
File names matter less than alt text, but descriptive names help. Webflow often adds a hashed prefix to file names, so it's worth renaming files to something readable during the download step if you have time.
How do you handle Webflow rich text in the export?
Webflow rich-text fields export as HTML, which most CMSs can import. Clean it first: remove Webflow-specific classes and wrappers, check embeds, and confirm headings start at the right level for your new templates.
- Classes and wrappers. Webflow adds its own class names and wrapper elements around images and embeds. Strip them so the new site's styles apply.
- Images. Rich-text images appear as figure elements with Webflow URLs. Rewrite the URLs to your re-hosted files.
- Embeds. Video and custom code embeds come through as HTML. Check each one still works on the new platform.
- Headings. If posts use H1s inside the body, change them to H2s so the template's title is the only H1.
The next step depends on where you're going. For Webflow to Webflow or a new Webflow site, see importing a CSV into Webflow CMS. For Framer, see importing content into Framer CMS. For anything else, our guide to migrating rich text between CMSs covers HTML, Markdown and Portable Text.
What should you do with the export before importing it?
Audit it before you import anything. An export is the easiest place to see what you actually have: posts nobody reads, empty fields, categories with one item, and duplicate content.
Add columns for traffic, backlinks and a decision for each item, then filter out anything you won't move. Our content audit before migration gives you the template. If the old structure was messy, our content modeling guide helps you decide what the new collections should look like before you import into them.
Run the export twice: once at the start of the project to plan, and once just before launch to catch posts published or edited in between. If you script the export through the API, the second run takes minutes instead of an afternoon.
