How to Export All Data from Redtail CRM: Methods & Limits

There is no single "Export Everything" button in Redtail CRM. The native database backup gives you a MySQL dump that covers most record types — contacts, notes, activities, opportunities, seminars, and manually tracked accounts — but it strips the user lookup table, leaves email archives in a proprietary Zimbra format, and requires a database engineer to reconstruct. Custom Export Templates let you pick specific contact fields for a CSV, but they omit large swaths of account-level data. The REST API preserves relational links and user attribution but enforces rate limits that can stall a multi-year extraction.

Here is what each export method actually gives you:

If your goal is a complete, migration-ready extract — especially if you are moving to Wealthbox, Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, or another CRM — the database backup alone is insufficient. You need the backup plus a separate user ID export, plus API extraction or manual effort for attachments and email archives.

Migration-ready extract means more than a SQL dump. You need user attribution on every note and activity, properly separated tasks vs. appointments, household relationship links, and compliance email archives in a format your target system can ingest.

For context on why flat file exports struggle with relational CRM data, see our breakdown of Using CSVs for SaaS Data Migrations.

How to Request a Redtail Database Backup

The database backup is the closest thing Redtail offers to a full data export. It produces a MySQL dump file (.sql) inside a .zip archive.

1. Navigate to Manage Your Account in Redtail CRM.
2. Under the Admins Only section, click Dropbox Files and Database Backups.
3. Click Request database backup in the top right corner.
4. When the backup completes, a link to the .zip file will appear on the same screen. You may need to refresh the page.
5. Download the .zip file. (help.wealthbox.com)

Inside the .zip file is a large .sql file — a MySQL database dump that can be restored to a local MySQL server for analysis. This is not a spreadsheet you can open in Excel. You will need MySQL Workbench or equivalent tooling to work with it.

What the Database Backup Includes

The backup includes contact details (including User Defined Fields), notes and comments, activities, opportunities, seminars, and manually tracked accounts such as policies and annuities. (help.wealthbox.com)

What the Database Backup Does NOT Include

• User names and the users lookup table. The backup contains user ID references (like added_by fields) but no users table to resolve those IDs to actual names. This is the single biggest gotcha.
• File attachments and documents. Documents stored in Redtail Imaging are not part of the CRM database backup.
• Email archives. These are a completely separate Zimbra-based system with their own export path.
• Workflow configurations. Automation rules, workflow templates, and seminar templates are not exported.

The Hidden Risks of Redtail's Native Database Backup

Missing User Attribution Breaks Compliance Trails

The database backup is missing the single most important piece of metadata for multi-user firms: who did what.

Redtail user IDs are not defined in the database export. The activities table contains an added_by field with a numeric user ID, but there is no users table in the dump that maps those IDs to actual names. You must locate user IDs through the Redtail application and build your own mapping table.

There are also separate tables for writing_advisor and servicing_advisor IDs, which use a different set of user IDs and apply to only a handful of tables. So even if you map the added_by IDs correctly, you have a second set of advisor IDs to track down.

To capture the user roster, Wealthbox's current migration instructions say to open User Management, hover over each username, and read the six-digit ID at the end of the URL. Their guide also recommends checking the Disabled tab so former employees and legacy users do not disappear from your audit trail. Without a usable user mapping, Wealthbox warns that notes may default to the account owner — enough to distort accountability across your entire migrated record. (help.wealthbox.com)

Undefined Lookup Codes Require Manual Translation

Redtail uses numeric codes throughout the database without providing corresponding lookup tables. The marital_status field stores values 1–7, but the database has no table defining what each number means. You need to manually check sample records in the Redtail UI and build your own translation tables.

The same problem affects contact_membership_codes. There can be inconsistencies where the code in the database does not match the type shown in the Redtail UI. Always validate codes against the live application before mapping.

In Redtail, individuals and organizations are all records in the contacts table, distinguished only by a type field. This is straightforward once you know it, but can trip up teams who expect separate entity tables.

The DEFINER Error That Blocks Restoration

When restoring the MySQL dump to a local server, many teams hit this error:

MySQL Error 1227: "Access denied; you need (at least one of) the SUPER privilege(s) for this operation"

This is caused by DEFINER statements in the dump file. These must be stripped out before the import will succeed. For small files, find and delete the DEFINER lines in a text editor. For large files, use sed:

sed -i 's/DEFINER=[^*]*\*/\*/g' redtail_backup.sql

For a deep dive on common data migration pitfalls in financial services, see 7 Costly Mistakes to Avoid When Migrating Financial Data.

Redtail Custom Export Templates: What They Can and Cannot Do

Custom Export Templates are Redtail's DIY reporting tool. They let you handpick the fields you want to see in your exports, then run those exports for individual contacts or in bulk. Think of them as DIY reports, not migration tools. (redtailtechnology.com)

Here is how to create and run one:

1. Select Manage Your Account from the top right menu.
2. Click Custom Export Templates in the Manage Templates area.
3. Click the New button in the top right corner.
4. Select each field you want from the Export Builder.
5. Run the export against a Quicklist, Tag Group, or Advanced Search result set.
6. Open the downloaded file in Microsoft Excel.

The Field Gap Problem

Custom Exports are useful for data cleanup and quick contact lists, but they are not a full export tool. Many account-level fields are unavailable in the Custom Export builder, including:

• LTC (Long Term Care) information — users have formally requested this and been told it is not available (feedback.redtailtechnology.com)
• Account Payment info
• Account UDFs (User Defined Fields)
• Social media URLs
• Spouse details (age, retirement date)
• Advisor, Associate Advisor, and CSA assignments
• Tag Groups
• Account-level Strategic Allocation Models

The Redtail Account ID is needed for bulk updating accounts, but there is no way to get it from custom exports. This means getting all the information needed to update accounts requires combining multiple spreadsheets without a unifying Account ID.

The Redtail feedback forum has multiple long-running requests — some dating back to 2016 — asking for these fields. Bottom line: Custom Export Templates are good for targeted contact-field pulls. They are not migration-grade export tools.

Exporting Notes, Activities, and Attachments for Compliance

Wealth management firms operate under strict SEC and FINRA data retention rules. A CRM migration is not just about moving phone numbers — it is about preserving the exact historical record of client interactions, notes, and file attachments.

Activities = Tasks + Appointments (Combined)

One of Redtail's most migration-unfriendly design decisions is that tasks and appointments are stored together as "activities." Most target CRMs — Wealthbox, Salesforce, HubSpot — treat tasks and calendar events as distinct record types.

Every Redtail activity code must be mapped to either a Task or an Appointment before migration. LeadCenter's migration documentation states this explicitly: Redtail stores tasks and appointments together as activities, while LeadCenter stores them as separate record types. Each activity code must be mapped accordingly.

If an activity code is left unmapped, those records will not migrate at all. This is easy to miss when you have dozens of custom activity codes built up over years.

In practice, build a mapping sheet before cutover:

activity_type_map:
  Client Meeting: event
  Annual Review: event
  Follow Up Call: task
  Paperwork Missing: task
user_map:
  123456: jane.doe
  654321: legacy_user

Do not skip this. It is the difference between a clean calendar-history migration and a target system full of meetings turned into to-dos.

One more wrinkle: Redtail activity categories are shared across notes, workflows, and documents. That shared taxonomy is convenient inside Redtail, but it creates overloading when you try to force one-to-one mappings downstream. (redtailtechnology.com)

Notes: More Than Just Plain Text

Redtail's Notes by Contact Report can be filtered and exported to Excel, making it useful for QA and sanity-checking note volumes before migration. But it is a flat report built for humans, not a relational export built for rehydrating history in another CRM.

Redtail's client notes view can include more than plain notes. It displays Activity, Email Sent, Note, Workflow Summary, and legacy Workflow Step note types. A note export can blur multiple history types together unless you deliberately map and separate them. (redtailtechnology.com)

Attachments and Documents Are a Separate Workstream

Redtail offers a separate document storage product (Redtail Imaging) and allows file attachments on individual contact records. Neither is included in the database backup. The native backup contains only metadata and text records — not the actual PDFs, signed agreements, or client documents.

The first question is not "how do I bulk export files?" — it is "where are the files actually living?" Documents can reside in CRM Document Storage or Redtail Imaging, depending on your firm's configuration. (redtailtechnology.com)

There is no bulk download feature. The API exposes a GET /contacts/{CONTACTID}/documents endpoint that returns document metadata (category, description, file extension, file name, file path, file size, created date, and the user who added the record). That is useful for inventory, but it means per-contact traversal for actual file extraction. (api2.redtailtechnology.com)

For firms with 10+ years of document history, this is often the most time-consuming part of the entire migration.

Contact Relationships and Households

Redtail relates contacts through several database tables that must be mapped carefully:

• contact_families and contact_family_members — define household groupings
• contact_memberships and contact_membership_codes — categorize relationships
• contact_professionals — link contacts to their attorneys, CPAs, etc.

The contact_family_members table contains a hoh (head of household) field, which can conflict with the "Head of Household" membership code. This redundancy is a known source of confusion — the hoh field is generally considered authoritative for the Redtail UI.

Phones, emails, and addresses are stored in separate tables linked to contacts via contact_id. If your target CRM stores these as fields on the contact record (as Salesforce does), this data must be "flattened" during migration.

Redtail API: Capabilities and Rate Limit Constraints

Redtail offers a REST API with over a hundred endpoints providing programmatic access to contacts, activities, notes, opportunities, and other record types. The API is the only export method that preserves relational links and user attribution in a structured, queryable format. It returns JSON and supports standard CRUD operations. (corporate.redtailtechnology.com)

Rate Limits Throttle Bulk Extraction

Redtail enforces rate limits that vary by subscription plan. An external engineering write-up describing a real Redtail integration reports throttles around ~100 requests per minute on lower tiers and ~1,000 requests per minute on professional tiers. Treat these as field reports, not a contractual SLA — Redtail's API terms state that Orion can restrict or terminate API use that exceeds a "reasonable request volume." (corporate.redtailtechnology.com)

To put this in perspective: if a wealth management firm has 5,000 contacts, each with an average of 20 notes, 10 activities, and 3 linked accounts, you are looking at roughly 165,000+ individual API calls for just the core data. At 100 requests/minute on a standard tier, that is over 27 hours of continuous extraction — before pagination, retries, and error recovery.

If your extraction script hits the rate limit without proper exponential backoff, Redtail's API may block your requests entirely. A reasonable throttled extraction pattern looks like this:

for contact_id in contact_ids:
    limiter.wait()
    documents = api.get(f'/contacts/{contact_id}/documents')
    persist(documents)
    save_checkpoint(contact_id)

That pseudocode is simple on purpose. The production version is where the pain shows up: retries, restart safety, actor mapping, delta windows, and keeping files and mail in sync with core CRM data.

What the API Cannot Do

• Bulk file download. Document and attachment retrieval requires per-record API calls.
• Email archive access. The Zimbra-hosted email system is not accessible via the CRM API.
• CompletedByUserId on activities. The Activity Index and Activity Show API endpoints do not include the CompletedByUserId attribute, so you can pull who created an activity but not who completed it.

This is why standard, off-the-shelf integration platforms fail during Redtail migrations. They are built for periodic syncing, not bulk historical extraction through a throttled API.

Handling Redtail-Hosted Email Backups (.zdb Format)

If your firm uses Redtail's hosted email (powered by Zimbra), the email export path is completely separate from the CRM data export. Redtail markets its email product as hosted and archived mail with support for POP3, IMAP4, MAPI, and webmail. (corporate.redtailtechnology.com)

When you request a mailbox backup through the Redtail interface, the system generates a .tgz compressed file containing a .zdb file. This is a proprietary Zimbra database format — not a PST file. It cannot be opened in Outlook, Apple Mail, or standard eDiscovery tools without specialized conversion. (bitrecover.com)

Your options for making .zdb files usable:

1. Import to another Zimbra server. You can migrate to a Zimbra server using the built-in import option. This is the only free path, but it requires standing up a Zimbra instance.
2. Use a third-party ZDB converter. Paid tools can convert .zdb files to PST, EML, MBOX, or facilitate direct cloud migration (Office 365, Gmail).
3. IMAP-based extraction. If your Redtail email account supports IMAP access, you can connect a migration tool directly to the mail server and pull messages into your target platform without going through the .zdb file at all.

The practical rule:

• If you are moving live mailboxes, prefer an IMAP or MAPI-based migration path.
• If you are preserving historical compliance archives, validate the archive format and downstream reader before cutover.
• If you need email linked inside the new CRM, test how those references will be recreated — moving mail and moving CRM history are usually two different pipelines.

Comparing Export Methods: Native Backup vs. API vs. Managed Migration

The native backup is the right starting point if you have a database engineer on staff and relatively simple data. The API is the right choice if you need surgical extraction of specific objects with full attribution. A managed migration makes sense when you need everything — CRM data, user mapping, activity splitting, email archives, documents — delivered to the target system without pulling your ops team off their real work.

For a broader comparison of migration approaches, see Top 5 Best CRM Migration Solutions.

How to Execute a Redtail CRM Migration

Whether you are moving to Wealthbox, Salesforce FSC, or another platform, here is the execution sequence that avoids the most common failures.

Step 1: Request the database backup. Use the steps above. Do this first — backup generation can take time for large databases.

Step 2: Export user IDs separately on the same day. Go to the Redtail application and document every user's name and corresponding ID, including disabled users. Build a mapping table: user_id → full name → target system user. Do not defer this. (help.wealthbox.com)

Step 3: Inventory and map your activity codes. List every activity code your firm uses and decide whether each maps to a Task or an Appointment/Event in the target CRM. Do this before any import scripts are finalized.

Step 4: Run QA report exports. Export Notes by Contact and Activities by Contact reports. Use them to count record volumes, spot broken categories, and validate the migrated sample later. Run Custom Export Templates for any contact-level fields you need as a cross-reference.

Step 5: Handle email archives separately. Request your Zimbra mailbox backup and plan the conversion pipeline (ZDB → PST, IMAP migration, or both).

Step 6: Download documents from Redtail Imaging. If you have documents stored in Redtail, plan a per-record or API-based extraction. Check whether documents live in CRM storage or Redtail Imaging.

Step 7: Restore and validate. Import the MySQL dump into a local database using MySQL Workbench. Strip DEFINER statements if needed. Validate record counts, check user ID mappings against your table, resolve undefined codes, and spot-check relationship links between contacts and households.

Step 8: Transform and load. Map Redtail's data model to your target CRM's schema. This includes flattening phone/email/address tables, splitting activities into tasks and events, resolving lookup codes, and associating files with the correct contact records.

Step 9: Test with ugly data, then run final QA. Pick records with inactive users, recurring activities, linked files, and older notes. If your sample set is too clean, production cutover is where you discover the real bugs. Verify user attribution, note counts, activity counts, file links, and email history. Then decide whether you need a delta pass for the last few days of activity before go-live.

If you are evaluating the import side of a Wealthbox migration, our Wealthbox export guide covers the data model and format constraints you will be mapping into.

When a Redtail Export Is Enough — and When It Is Not

For a solo advisor with 500 contacts and simple data, the native database backup plus a few hours of manual mapping might be enough. For a multi-advisor RIA firm with 10,000+ contacts, years of notes, compliance email archives, and Redtail Imaging documents — that is a different story.

What breaks most DIY Redtail migrations is not getting the file. It is everything after: mapping user IDs to real users (including inactive staff), splitting activities into tasks and events, resolving undefined codes without a lookup table, moving documents from the right storage layer, and keeping email history readable after the move.

ClonePartner handles Redtail migrations end-to-end: automatic user ID mapping, activity-type splitting, Zimbra email conversion, document extraction, and delivery into your target CRM with full relational integrity preserved. Financial CRM data — with its compliance requirements and relationship complexity — is exactly the kind of work we specialize in.