Exporting a Canvas Course From a Past Year

If you want to share course content from a course you taught in a past year (to help a new teacher for example) you can create a course export file for them. This article will walk you through the process.

1. In the left navigation area in Canvas, go to Courses → All Courses and open the course you want to share.

2. Go to the Settings screen and select Export Course Content.

canvas menu bar with "export course content" highlighted

3. Select the Course option and hit the Create Export button

Export type radio buttons with "course" and "quiz" options. Course is selected. Create Export button below.

4. You will see a progress bar. How long it takes will depend on the amount of content, but you will eventually see a New Export link. Click this link to download the export file to your computer.

NOTE: If your computer is set to automatically open downloaded files (not a great idea...) you may see a message saying it can't identify an application to open the file. You can ignore/dismiss this message.

5. Upload the file to Google Drive and share with the new teacher. The teacher can then follow the instruction in our Copy a Canvas Course From a Previous Year instructions. They have been updated to include importing shared course export files...