export

qgis-cli export

Reads features from one layer of a project and writes them to a geospatial data format. Filtering, bounding boxes, and column selection happen in the provider, so only the rows you ask for are read.

Synopsis

qgis-cli export <PROJECT> --layer <NAME> [OPTIONS]

Options

Option	Default	Description
--layer <NAME>	—	Layer to export, as listed by qgis-cli info.
-o, --output <FILE>	—	Output file. The format follows the extension.
--filter <EXPR>	—	QGIS expression filter, e.g. "height" > 50.
--bbox <MINX,MINY,MAXX,MAXY>	—	Restrict to a bounding box in the layer CRS.
--select <A,B,C>	all fields	Fields to include. geometry selects the geometry column.
--crs <AUTH:CODE>	layer CRS	Reproject the output.
--limit <N>	unlimited	Stop after N features.

Output formats

Extension	Format
.geojson	GeoJSON FeatureCollection
.geojsonl	GeoJSON Lines (one feature per line)
.gpkg	GeoPackage
.fgb	FlatGeobuf
.csv	CSV with WKT geometry

Examples

# Whole layer to GeoJSON
qgis-cli export map.qgs --layer buildings -o buildings.geojson

# Only tall buildings
qgis-cli export map.qgs --layer buildings --filter "\"height\" > 50" -o tall.geojson

# Only what intersects an area, two columns plus geometry
qgis-cli export map.qgs --layer buildings \
    --bbox 14.0,50.0,15.0,51.0 \
    --select name,height,geometry \
    -o buildings.geojson

# Reprojected GeoPackage
qgis-cli export map.qgs --layer buildings --crs EPSG:3857 -o buildings.gpkg

# Stream the first thousand features as GeoJSON Lines
qgis-cli export map.qgs --layer buildings --limit 1000 -o buildings.geojsonl

Note

--filter takes a QGIS expression, not SQL. Quote field names with double quotes and string literals with single quotes: "type" = 'residential'. See the expr module.

See also

• features module — FeatureRequest and Filter in Rust
• expr module — expression syntax and evaluation
• qgis-cli info — find layer names and field lists