Export contact tags and stages in CSV exports

Has your proposal been discussed on the Mautic Forums already?
Yes, this proposal has been discussed extensively on the Mautic forums at https://forum.mautic.org/t/include-contact-stage-and-tags-in-imports-and-exports/10262/20

The discussion includes 20 replies with community members confirming the need for this feature and discussing workarounds. Related discussions also exist at https://forum.mautic.org/t/export-contacts-with-tag-field/8582.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Currently, Mautic allows importing contacts with tags and stages, but does not provide the ability to export this critical information when exporting contacts to CSV format. This creates a significant data management and portability challenge:

Incomplete data exports: When organisations export their contact database for backup, migration, analysis, or integration with other systems, tags and stages - two of the most important contact classification mechanisms in Mautic - are completely absent from the exported data. This means exported contact lists are incomplete and lack crucial context about contact engagement and lifecycle position.  

Data migration difficulties: Organisations moving between Mautic instances, migrating to different marketing platforms, or consolidating multiple Mautic installations cannot export their carefully curated tag and stage data. This forces manual reconstruction of contact classifications, risking data loss and consuming significant staff time.

Reporting and analysis limitations: Marketing teams cannot export contact data with tags and stages for analysis in external tools like Excel, Google Sheets, or business intelligence platforms. This prevents sophisticated segmentation analysis, prevents tracking contact progression through stages over time, and limits the ability to create custom reports combining Mautic data with other business data sources.

Backup and compliance challenges: Complete data backups require all contact information including tags and stages. Without export capability, organisations cannot create comprehensive backup archives, which may impact compliance with data protection requirements that mandate complete, exportable customer records.

Asymmetric import/export functionality: The ability to import contacts with tags exists but export does not, creating an inconsistent user experience and a functional gap that prevents round-trip data workflows. 

Workaround complexity: Currently, the only way to see contact tags in exports is to create separate segments for each tag combination, which becomes completely unmanageable as the number of tags grows. With even a modest tag taxonomy, this approach requires creating dozens or hundreds of segments, making it impractical. 

Describe the solution you'd like
Implement comprehensive tag and stage export functionality in Mautic's contact export system with the following features:

1. Tags column in CSV exports: Add a "Tags" column to the contact export CSV that contains all tags assigned to each contact. Tags should be formatted in a way that supports re-importing (for example, comma-separated or pipe-separated values within the field).

2. Stage column in CSV exports: Add a "Stage" column to the contact export CSV that displays the current stage assigned to each contact, making lifecycle position visible in exported data.

3. Report builder integration: Ensure that tags and stages are available as selectable columns when building custom contact reports, allowing users to include or exclude these fields based on their specific reporting needs. As of Mautic 5.2, filtering by tags was added to reports, but the tags themselves still don't appear in the exported Excel file. 

4. Consistent field naming: Use field names and formatting that match the import process, enabling seamless export-modify-import workflows without requiring data transformation.

5. Segment export support: Ensure tags and stages are included when exporting contacts from specific segments, not just full database exports.

6. API endpoint enhancement: ensure consistency with tags and stages in the contact export API endpoints, ensuring consistent programmatic access to complete contact data.

Describe alternatives or workarounds you've considered
Several workarounds currently exist, but all have significant limitations:

Multiple segment approach:

Creating individual segments for each tag or tag combination allows filtering contacts, but this becomes exponentially complex as tag count grows. An organisation with 20 tags would need potentially thousands of segment combinations to represent all possible tag groupings. This approach is mentioned in the forum discussion as quickly becoming "unwieldy." 

Manual tagging recreation:

Manually reviewing each contact and recording their tags externally before export. This is extremely time-consuming for databases with hundreds or thousands of contacts and highly error-prone.

Database-level queries:

Technical users can directly query the Mautic database to extract tag and stage information, joining the lead_tags_xref and lead_stages tables. However, this requires:

• Direct database access (often unavailable to marketers)

• SQL expertise

• Understanding of Mautic's database schema

• Risk of data inconsistency if not properly synchronized

• No integration with Mautic's export features or permissions system

API-based custom scripts:

Developing custom scripts that use the Mautic API to fetch contact data including tags and stages, then format into CSV. This requires developer resources, ongoing maintenance, and doesn't benefit non-technical users.

Third-party integration platforms:

Using tools like Make, Zapier, or n8n to extract contact data with tags. This adds cost, requires additional tool management, introduces latency, and still requires custom configuration to achieve the desired export format.

None of these workarounds provide the straightforward, built-in export functionality that users expect and that would match the import capabilities Mautic already provides.

Additional context
Import capability already exists:

Mautic already supports importing contacts with tags through the import wizard, where users can assign tags during the import process. The export capability would complete this workflow, enabling round-trip data migration.  

Recent related improvements:

As of Mautic 5.2, filtering report data by tags was added through PR #11346, demonstrating ongoing development in tag-related features. However, while users can now filter by tags, the tags themselves still don't appear in the exported Excel/CSV file, highlighting the incompleteness of current export functionality. 

Tags and stages are core classification tools:

Tags and stages represent two of the most important ways users organize and classify contacts in Mautic. Tags provide flexible, multi-dimensional categorization (customer type, interests, source, etc.), whilst stages track contacts through lifecycle progression (lead, prospect, customer, etc.). The inability to export this core metadata significantly undermines the utility of Mautic's export functionality.

User experience consistency:

The asymmetry between import and export creates user confusion. Users expect that if they can import data with certain fields, they should be able to export data with those same fields. The current limitation violates this principle of functional consistency.

Data portability and ownership:

Modern data protection regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) emphasize data portability and the right of data controllers to have complete access to their data. The inability to export complete contact records including tags and stages may create compliance concerns for organisations managing customer data.

Does this issue could impact on users private data?
No direct impact on private data handling beyond standard export functionality. The feature adds additional fields (tags and stages) to existing contact exports, which are already subject to Mautic's existing permission and access control systems.

Administrators should ensure:

• Only users with appropriate export permissions can access this functionality (consistent with current export permissions)

• Exported files containing contact data (now including tags and stages) are handled securely according to organisational data protection policies

• Tags and stages themselves don't contain sensitive personal data that shouldn't be exported

The feature enhances data portability without changing the fundamental security model of contact data exports.

Funded by
Not currently funded. This proposal is being submitted to gauge community interest and initiate discussion about implementation approach. Organisations or community members interested in sponsoring development of this feature are encouraged to indicate their interest.