Backups and export

Tasker has no server to hold a copy of your data, so the export format matters. A .unkt bundle is the single format for backups, sharing with another person, and syncing between your own devices over Wi-Fi.

The bundle

bundle.unkt                     (ZIP, stored without compression)
  ├─ manifest.json              lists, stages, projects, tasks, subtasks,
  │                             attachment metadata, spaces, pages,
  │                             assistants, runs, approvals, receipts, automations
  └─ attachments/<taskID>/<filename>    attachment bytes

It is an ordinary ZIP, written by a small Foundation-only writer, so you can open it with any unzip tool and read the manifest as JSON.

Manifest versions

Every version only adds optional fields, so older bundles still import.

Version	Adds
1	Lists, workflow stages and tasks
2	Projects and per-task attachment metadata, for a full-fidelity round trip
3	Page spaces and pages, so you can share one wiki space or back up the whole thing
4	Assistant history: assistants, runs, approvals, receipts and automations

Never exported

• Assistant keys. The key digest is not part of the export format at all, so a restored assistant starts without a key and you issue a new one.
• Your AI provider keys. They live in the device Keychain and are not synced or exported.

Encrypted note and page bodies, and encrypted attachments, are exported as stored, still sealed. Only a device that holds your encryption key, meaning your own devices on the same iCloud account, can read them. Someone you send a bundle to gets the tasks but not the sealed text; decrypting for a person-to-person share is planned.

Two ways to import

Mode	Use it for	What happens
Merge	Restoring your own backup, or syncing your own devices	IDs are kept and same-ID rows are merged field by field with the merge rules, so nothing is duplicated
Copy	A bundle from another person	Every item gets a new ID, so an import can never overwrite your data; the original ID is kept as provenance

An import reports how many items were imported, merged and skipped.

Spreadsheet export

Tasker can also export tasks as an .xlsx file that opens in Excel or Numbers: one “Tasks” sheet with title, list, status, priority, kind, due date, completion date, recurrence, contexts and notes. The file is assembled from Office Open XML parts by hand, with no third-party library.