Projects

metabase-export

Written on 3 min readpypi

A command-line tool that reads Metabase’s native (SQL) questions from its application database and writes them to disk as a tree of .sql files that mirrors the collections. Your report SQL lives in git instead of only inside Metabase.

Usage

uvx metabase-export --output reports

Every run rewrites the output directory. It is a mirror, not a merge: a card deleted or archived in Metabase disappears from disk. Directories whose name starts with _ are never touched.

It needs read access to the Metabase application database (metabaseappdb), not to the databases Metabase reports against. The password comes from METABASE_PG_PASSWORD or a prompt — never from a flag.

uvx metabase-export --output reports --root-collection 4  # one collection
uvx metabase-export --output reports --dry-run            # change nothing
uvx metabase-export --output reports --port 15433 --ssh-host prod-box

The collection id comes from its URL: /collection/4-my-reports → 4.

OptionDefault
--output DIRreportswhere to write the tree
--dry-runofflist changes, write nothing
--root-collection IDallexport only this collection and its children
--host --port --user --dbname127.0.0.1 5432 postgres metabaseappdbconnection
--ssh-host HOST—tunnel --port through this host if it is closed
--remote-port PORT5432Postgres port on the far side

Each option has an env var (METABASE_EXPORT_DIR, METABASE_PG_HOST, …; see --help), so a project can pin its settings and run with no arguments.

Notes

  • Only native (SQL) questions. Query-builder questions have no SQL and are skipped.
  • Reads MBQL5 (Metabase 50+) and the older native.query format.
  • Output is deterministic: two runs in a row leave the tree untouched.
  • Files keep {{parameter}} placeholders, so they are not runnable outside Metabase.

Motivation

I had many questions saved in Metabase and backing them up or versioning them was hard: they lived only inside the tool, with no history and no way to get them into git without copying them by hand. metabase-export was born to fix that.