How to export collection to CSV in MongoDB?

Question

How do you export all the records in a MongoDB collection to a .csv file?

mongoexport --host localhost --db dbname --collection name --type=csv > test.csv 

This asks me to specify name of the fields I need to export. Can I just export all the fields without specifying the names of fields?

Answer 1

@karoly-horvath has it right. Fields are required for csv.

According to this bug in the MongoDB issue tracker https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-4224 you MUST provide the fields when exporting to a csv. The docs are not clear on it. That is the reason for the error.

Try this:

mongoexport --host localhost --db dbname --collection name --csv --out text.csv --fields firstName,middleName,lastName 

UPDATE:

This commit: https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-tools/commit/586c00ef09c32c77907bd20d722049ed23065398 fixes the docs for 3.0.0-rc10 and later. It changes

Fields string `long:"fields" short:"f" description:"comma separated list of field names, e.g. -f name,age"` 

to

Fields string `long:"fields" short:"f" description:"comma separated list of field names (required for exporting CSV) e.g. -f \"name,age\" "` 

VERSION 3.0 AND ABOVE:

You should use --type=csv instead of --csv since it has been deprecated.

More details: https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/program/mongoexport/#export-in-csv-format

Full command:

mongoexport --host localhost --db dbname --collection name --type=csv --out text.csv --fields firstName,middleName,lastName