How to Import Goodreads to StoryGraph: A Complete Migration Guide

Moving your reading history from Goodreads to StoryGraph is one of the most common questions in the book-tracking community — and for good reason. StoryGraph has become a serious alternative to Goodreads, offering mood-based recommendations, detailed reading analytics, and a platform that isn't owned by Amazon. The good news: the import process is straightforward, but a few variables affect how cleanly your data transfers.

What Gets Exported from Goodreads

Before starting, it helps to understand what Goodreads actually exports. When you request your data, Goodreads generates a CSV file (comma-separated values) that includes:

• Book titles, authors, and ISBNs
• Your shelves (read, currently reading, want to read, and any custom shelves)
• Star ratings (1–5)
• Date added and date read
• Your text reviews
• Page count and edition details (where available)

What the export does not reliably include: reading progress updates, social activity, comments on friends' reviews, or community data. You're essentially moving your personal library record — not your Goodreads social presence.

Step-by-Step: Exporting Your Goodreads Data

1. Log into your Goodreads account on a desktop browser (this feature isn't accessible in the mobile app)
2. Navigate to My Books in the top navigation
3. In the left sidebar, scroll to the bottom and click Import and Export
4. Click Export Library
5. Goodreads will generate the file — this can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours depending on the size of your library
6. Once ready, download the CSV file to your computer

Libraries with thousands of books may take longer to process. If you don't receive the file quickly, check back after a few hours rather than requesting a new export immediately.

Step-by-Step: Importing Into StoryGraph

Once you have your CSV file:

1. Create a StoryGraph account if you haven't already (free tier available)
2. From your StoryGraph dashboard, go to Import — found under your profile menu
3. Select Import from Goodreads
4. Upload the CSV file you downloaded
5. StoryGraph will process the file and map your books to its own database

StoryGraph matches books using ISBN numbers from your export. This is important: editions with valid ISBNs match reliably, while older books, obscure titles, or editions with missing ISBNs may not match automatically and could require manual lookup.

What to Expect During the Import 📚

The import isn't always a perfect 1:1 transfer. Here's what commonly happens:

Custom shelves from Goodreads don't always map cleanly to StoryGraph's tagging system, which works differently. StoryGraph uses a combination of reading status, moods, pacing tags, and personal lists — none of which are direct equivalents to Goodreads' open-ended shelf system. Expect to spend some time reorganizing custom categories after import.

Variables That Affect Your Experience

How smooth the migration feels depends on several factors:

Library size. Smaller libraries (under a few hundred books) typically import with minimal friction. Larger libraries — especially those built over many years on Goodreads — are more likely to include editions with incomplete ISBN data, which leads to unmatched titles.

Edition diversity. If you tracked specific editions (international prints, older publications, self-published works), you'll encounter more mismatches than someone who primarily read mainstream contemporary titles. StoryGraph's database is growing but doesn't yet match the scale of Goodreads' catalog.

Custom shelf complexity. Readers who used Goodreads shelves as a detailed organizational system (genre tags, reading challenges, series tracking) will have more cleanup work than those who only used the default shelves.

Technical comfort level. The CSV file can be opened and edited in spreadsheet software like Excel or Google Sheets before importing. Some users clean up their data first — removing duplicates, correcting ISBNs, or standardizing dates. This is optional but can meaningfully improve match rates for large or complex libraries.

After the Import: What StoryGraph Does Differently

Once your library is in StoryGraph, the platform works quite differently from Goodreads. Rather than a simple star-rating feed, StoryGraph generates reading stats based on your history — pages read per month, genre breakdown, pacing preferences, and mood trends. These analytics build over time and become more useful the more complete your reading history is.

Ratings you imported from Goodreads feed directly into StoryGraph's recommendation engine, which factors in not just stars but the mood and content descriptors associated with each book. A 5-star rating for a slow-burn literary novel and a 5-star rating for a fast-paced thriller get interpreted differently.

One thing to know: StoryGraph doesn't automatically sync with Goodreads on an ongoing basis. 🔄 The import is a one-time migration, not a live connection. If you continue using Goodreads alongside StoryGraph, you'll be managing two separate records — or doing periodic manual exports.

The Factor Only You Can Account For

The mechanics of this migration are consistent for everyone. What varies is how well your specific Goodreads history — your edition choices, your shelf structure, your years of accumulated data — maps onto the way StoryGraph is built. A reader with 200 recently published books and simple shelves will have a different experience than someone with 2,000 books spanning decades of editions and an elaborate custom shelf system.

The process itself is well-documented and largely reliable. Whether the result feels complete and useful depends on the shape of the library you're bringing with you.