MongoDB Import, Export, and Database Tools

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Use mongoimport, mongoexport, bsondump, and GridFS tools for practical MongoDB data movement workflows.

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Import and export data

Command-line tools for structured data movement.

Export a collection to JSON

Write documents to a JSON file.

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bashANYmongoexportjsonmongodb

bash

mongoexport --uri="mongodb://localhost:27017/appdb" --collection=users --out=users.json

Useful for interoperability, reporting, and selective migrations.

Export selected fields to CSV

Create a CSV export for spreadsheets or BI tools.

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bashANYmongoexportcsvmongodb

bash

mongoexport --uri="mongodb://localhost:27017/appdb" --collection=users --type=csv --fields=name,email,created_at --out=users.csv

CSV export is handy when downstream tools expect a flat tabular format.

Import JSON data

Load JSON documents into a collection.

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bashANYmongoimportjsonmongodb

bash

mongoimport --uri="mongodb://localhost:27017/appdb" --collection=users --file=users.json --jsonArray

`--jsonArray` is required when the source file contains one top-level JSON array.

Import CSV data

Load CSV rows into a collection.

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bashANYmongoimportcsvmongodb

bash

mongoimport --uri="mongodb://localhost:27017/appdb" --collection=users --type=csv --headerline --file=users.csv

`--headerline` uses the first row as field names.

Convert BSON to JSON

Inspect dump data as JSON.

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bashANYbsondumpbsonjson

bash

bsondump dump/appdb/users.bson > users.json

Useful when you want to inspect BSON dump content in a human-readable format.

GridFS and files

Work with files stored in MongoDB GridFS.

List GridFS files

Show files stored in GridFS.

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bashANYmongofilesgridfsfiles

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mongofiles --uri="mongodb://localhost:27017/appdb" list

Useful when MongoDB is being used to store large files or media via GridFS.

Upload a file to GridFS

Store a local file in GridFS.

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bashANYmongofilesgridfsupload

bash

mongofiles --uri="mongodb://localhost:27017/appdb" put report.pdf

Uploads the file into GridFS collections.

Download a GridFS file

Retrieve a file from GridFS.

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bashANYmongofilesgridfsdownload

bash

mongofiles --uri="mongodb://localhost:27017/appdb" get report.pdf

Good for round-trip validation and recovery tasks.

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