How to Export Your ForeFlight Logbook

ForeFlight exports your logbook as one CSV file from the Logbook page on ForeFlight Web, and that file is the only machine-readable copy of your flying you can take anywhere else. Signatures, endorsements, photos and track logs do not ride along in it, by ForeFlight's own account, which makes the export a two-file job: the CSV for the data and a PDF report for the ink (ForeFlight support, checked October 2026).

The job itself is short. The step that catches the errors, writing the totals down first, is the one that gets skipped.

Can you export the CSV from the iPad app?

ForeFlight documents its CSV logbook export on ForeFlight Web only; the iPad and iPhone app offers printable reports under More, then Logbook, then Reports, not a CSV (ForeFlight support, checked October 2026). The first step is a computer, or at least a browser.

The export article, last updated February 7, 2025, gives four steps:

1. Log in to ForeFlight on the Web at plan.foreflight.com.
2. Click Logbook.
3. Click the Export tab at the top.
4. Click the blue Export button, and the CSV downloads.

On the iPad, what you can produce is a report. ForeFlight's reports article (updated February 7, 2025) has you tap More, then Logbook, scroll to Reports, pick a report type, and set the time range by tapping All Time at the top. Those reports print and email as PDFs. They are the right thing to hand a DPE and the wrong thing to hand an importer.

Turn on the 30-day auto-export

ForeFlight documents the auto-export in a dedicated article (updated November 21, 2024). On ForeFlight Web, open Logbook, select the Settings tab, and slide Export to Email to On. Choose CSV (selected by default), PDF, or both. An email with the export arrives within minutes, then one every 30 days to the address on the account. Export Now sends one on demand.

Pick both. ForeFlight describes the CSV as "a plain text file in table format, compatible with spreadsheet applications," which "excludes signatures, endorsements, photos, and track logs." The PDF is the Complete Logbook - 2 Page layout: the entries with category and class, plus endorsements, certificates and license information.

Two quirks. Switching the toggle off and on resets the schedule, so the next export lands 30 days after you re-enable it. And ForeFlight warns in the same article that re-importing a CSV into its own Logbook creates duplicates of every entry already there, so the backup is for other apps, or for a disaster, not for routine round trips.

The file holds two tables, aircraft first

ForeFlight publishes a field-by-field description of its logbook template in a formatting article (updated September 19, 2025) and a sample file with fictitious flights. It does not publish a separate specification for the exported file, so open your export in a spreadsheet and check it against the template; the layout below is what ForeFlight itself reads and writes to its template.

The template is one sheet with two tables stacked vertically. Row 1 is a marker, "ForeFlight Logbook Import," with the note "This row is required for importing into ForeFlight. Do not delete or modify." Below it comes the Aircraft Table, one row per airplane or training device, then a blank row, then the Flights Table. An importer that treats the whole sheet as one table will choke on the aircraft rows, so the destination has to know it is reading a ForeFlight file.

The aircraft table has 13 columns: AircraftID (the tail number), EquipmentType (aircraft, FFS, FTD, AATD or BATD), TypeCode (the ICAO designator, such as P28A), Year, Make, Model, GearType, EngineType, Category/Class (ASEL or AMEL, for example), and four true-or-false flags for Complex, High Performance, Pressurized and TAA. In the sample file, N12345 is a 1984 Cessna 172P, FT for fixed tricycle, Piston, ASEL, all flags false. That one row is what lets the receiving app total your single-engine time without asking you what a 172P is.

The flights table is wider. The sample runs to 61 named columns before the custom-field columns begin.

Column names and formats are from ForeFlight's logbook template formatting article, last updated September 19, 2025, checked October 2026.

What does not survive the move

Start with what ForeFlight states outright: the CSV has no signatures, no endorsements, no photos and no track logs. That is not a bug in the destination app. The data was never in the file.

The regulatory weight sits on the first two. Training time must be endorsed by the instructor in a legible manner, with a description of the training, its length, and the instructor's signature, certificate number and expiration date (14 CFR 61.51(h)(2)), and you must present the logbook on a reasonable request (61.51(i)(1)). After a move, the CSV holds your hours and the PDF holds your proof. Keep both, forever, in a place you control.

Then come the things that make the trip but arrive garbled.

Custom fields travel as columns headed with a type in brackets, such as [Hours]Night Vision. MyFlightbook's import FAQ says it does not know how to interpret those because you defined them, and asks you to rename each header to one of its own field names before importing. Expect the same from any destination.

Approach details are packed six to an entry in the Approach1 to Approach6 columns, each cell holding five fields separated by semicolons: number, type, runway, airport, comments. A destination that does not parse that format will either keep the string as a note or drop it. Count your approaches before and after: 61.51(g)(3) requires the location and type of each instrument approach to be recorded for it to count toward the recent instrument experience in 61.57(c).

People are packed the same way, Name;Role;Email, so a safety pilot's name may land in a comments field rather than a crew field. Check it, because 61.51(b)(1)(v) requires the safety pilot's name when one is required.

Dates and times are the quiet one. The formatting article specifies YYYY-MM-DD, yet the sample file ForeFlight posts uses 10/25/20. Spreadsheets reinterpret both, and a US-locale Excel will turn 03:36 into a time of day. MyFlightbook's FAQ makes the same point: do arithmetic on the decimal columns, never on HH:MM. Look at the file. Do not trust the documentation about it.

Check your totals before and after

Write the numbers down before you touch the file.

In ForeFlight, open Reports (web: Logbook, then the Reports tab; iPad: More, Logbook, Reports) and set the range to all time. Note total time, PIC, night, cross-country, actual instrument and simulated instrument, day landings and night landings, and the number of approaches in the period you care about. Those come from ForeFlight's own math, which is the baseline you are testing against.

Next, open the CSV in a spreadsheet. Count the rows in the flights table and sum TotalTime. If the sum differs from the report, look for HH:MM cells that your spreadsheet read as clock times, or for a simulator entry whose hours sit in the SimulatedFlight column rather than TotalTime. Suppose the report says 127.4 hours over 69 entries and the sheet sums to 124.3 over 69 rows. The row count matches, so no flight is missing; the 3.1 hours are in a misread cell, such as one formatted 03:06, or in a sim entry counted differently.

After importing, run the same totals in the destination and compare line by line. Check three causes first. Rows rejected because an aircraft was not recognised, which is why the aircraft table matters. Times misread. Or the file imported twice: ForeFlight and MyFlightbook both treat every imported row as new (MyFlightbook makes an exception only for rows carrying its own FlightID), so a second upload doubles everything.

Where to import the file

FlyFren's logbook, which is our product, is free and runs in a browser. It imports CSV exports from ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot and LogTen Pro, shows every entry in a preview before anything is saved, and exports back to CSV at any time (flyfren.com, checked October 2026). It does not list instructor endorsements or signatures, so the PDF stays your record of those.

MyFlightbook is also free and runs on the web, iOS and Android. Its FAQ describes a three-step import: make sure your aircraft exist, keyed by full tail number including the N; put the flights in a CSV; preview and fix before uploading. It reads ForeFlight exports with minimal manipulation apart from the bracketed custom-field headers, prefers CSV UTF-8, and will update rather than duplicate a flight only if the row carries a MyFlightbook FlightID (checked October 2026).

LogTen handles migrations differently. Its help center lists ForeFlight among the providers it imports from and asks you to email the file to its support team. The pricing page shows "Free Logbook Import Support," 1 on the $79.99 Basic plan and 4 on the $129.99 Pro plan, and the app is free until you have logged more than 50 hours of total time (logten.com, checked October 2026). It runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and, on Pro, the Mac.

The three are weighed against each other in LogTen vs ForeFlight vs MyFlightbook, the wider free field is in Best free pilot logbook apps, and what happens to the ForeFlight copy once you stop paying is in Can you use ForeFlight's logbook without a subscription?. Whichever you pick, import while the ForeFlight account is still live, compare the totals, and only then let the subscription go.

This article is educational and is not a substitute for the current regulations, the AIM, official weather briefings, or instruction from a CFI. Check the current text at the linked sources before you rely on any detail.