I read a lot of reviews of other shopping list apps. Not to gloat — to learn what makes people leave. One complaint keeps coming back, always in the one-star column, always from someone who had used the app for years: "and there is no way to get my data out." Years of lists, prices, the family's habits, sitting in a database they could look at but never take. I did not want that sentence written about Listo. So the latest update has a button I hope most of you never need.
It lives in Settings → Your data → Export my data. Tap it, pick a format, and the file lands in the share sheet — save it to Files or Drive, mail it to yourself, drop it in a spreadsheet. Everything is built on your phone from the data already sitting there. Nothing is sent to Listo, nothing is sent anywhere else.
Three formats, three reasons
- JSON is the complete one: every list and every item with its quantity, shop, price, bought date and the messages people left on it, plus your shops, your loyalty cards and your saved recipes. It carries a schema version, so anything you build against it keeps working.
- CSV is the spreadsheet one: one row per item, prices as plain decimals, the currency in its own column, quoting done properly so "bread, sliced" stays in one cell.
- Text is the readable one: every list in the same format the share button uses. And because the import feature reads that exact format, a text export pastes straight back into Listo, list by list. Export, edit in a notes app, import — the door swings both ways.
What "everything" cost me
I wrote the first version in an afternoon, exported my own account, and went looking for a message I had left on an item weeks ago. It was not in the file. It turned out the app only ever holds your most recent hundred lists on the phone and quietly stops loading older ones — a limit nobody had hit yet, including me, until an "everything" export made it visible. So the export now fetches every list you own before it writes the file, and the app itself now scrolls past the hundredth list too. Building the exit fixed a wall I did not know was there.
Why bother, if nobody taps it
Because the absence is what people notice. A list app is a slow accumulation of small decisions — which store, what price, how often — and after a year that history is worth more than the app. Knowing you can walk away with it is what makes staying a choice. Listo already keeps your voice on your phone, your saved recipes on your phone, and works without a connection. A door out belongs on that list.
Try it
- Update Listo, open Settings and find Your data.
- Tap Export my data and pick JSON, CSV or Text. The share sheet opens with the file.
- For a round trip, open the text file, copy one list, and paste it into Import from text.
If the file is missing something you expected, tell me at support@rolisto.com. I read every message, and half of Listo's best behavior started as one of them.
— Andrei