How to export and import help center articles from Intercom and Zendesk

Moving a help center looks like a copy job until a customer clicks an old link and lands on a 404. To export and import help center articles cleanly, you need more than article text. You also need working images, the right access settings, translations, and links that still lead customers to the right answer.

Direct answer: What is the easiest way to move your articles?

The easiest route depends on how many articles you have and where they are going. Copy a few by hand, export larger sets through the source API, or use a destination importer when one exists.

Choose the route that matches your destination

Manual: For a handful of articles, copy and paste is the fastest option. Zendesk lists manual copying, its Help Center API, and partner services as migration routes. Manual work stays reasonable only while volume is small. Past a few dozen articles, reformatting tables, images, and callouts by hand becomes slow and error-prone.
API: For a larger or repeatable move, use the source platform’s API. Neither Intercom nor Zendesk offers a standard article-export button in its help center interface. Do not mistake a report export or theme download for an article export. This route suits teams with someone comfortable scripting requests and transforming JSON.
Importer: If your destination has an importer, start there. Intercom imports public articles from Zendesk, and Ferndesk migrates articles from both Intercom and Zendesk with URLs preserved. Importers are usually the better fit for less technical teams.

Whichever route you choose, plan to check the imported articles and every old link yourself.

Step 1: Record what must move with each article

Before you pull a single article, build a spreadsheet that maps every source article to its future home.

Keep an old-to-new article record

Identity: Record each article’s original URL, article ID, and title. The URL and ID are what you will use later to repair links and set redirects.
Content and status: Store the HTML body and whether the article is published or a draft. Drafts often get imported as live content by accident.
Structure: Note category or collection placement, labels, and author. Zendesk organizes content into categories, sections, and articles, so plan that hierarchy before you migrate rather than rebuilding it from memory.
Audience: Capture each article’s locale and visibility settings. These fields determine who can see what once you rebuild structure and access in the destination.
Dependencies: Inventory images, attachments, and links between articles. Do not assume the article body contains the files themselves; it often contains only references to them.

Add an empty destination URL column now, because you will fill it during import and rely on it during testing.

Step 2: Export articles from Intercom

Intercom’s export path runs through its developer API, not the workspace interface.

Retrieve articles through the Articles API

List every article. Authenticate with an access token, request GET /articles, and follow pagination until you have the full article list. One page of results is not your whole help center.
Retrieve each article by ID. Intercom documents individual article retrieval for a full-content export. That call returns the title, HTML body, metadata, and localization data you need for an accurate rebuild.
Save the published URL. Store the original live URL with each record. Without it, you cannot confirm later whether old links reach the matching new article.

A practical tip from experience: write each article to its own JSON file named by ID. When something breaks during import, you can rerun a single article instead of the whole batch.

Do not rely on Reports for a CSV export

Intercom states that its workspace interface, including the Reports data export, does not export articles or article information. Its REST API is the documented export route. If a teammate hands you a Reports CSV, it will not contain article bodies or the details you need to rebuild them.

Step 3: Export articles from Zendesk

Zendesk exposes article content through its Help Center API, which suits bulk exports better than any manual method.

Retrieve each language through the Help Center API

Request articles per locale. Use an account with the necessary access and request GET /api/v2/help_center/{locale}/articles.json. Repeat the call for each language you need, such as en-us, de, and fr.
Follow pagination and keep the metadata. One response is not a complete backup. Preserve article IDs, original URLs, HTML, section IDs, and relevant access metadata so you can rebuild structure and permissions later.
Start from Zendesk’s backup guide if you want a script. Zendesk publishes a knowledge-base backup tutorial that gives you a working starting point. Treat its HTML backup as a safety copy, not a complete migration package.

The access point matters more than it looks. If the account running the export cannot see an article, that article will not appear in your results.

Account for images and reusable content separately

Zendesk’s backup tutorial does not back up images. Check hosted images and attachments separately before you leave the source help center, because they can stop loading once the old account closes. Third-party import apps can also handle attachments and links poorly, so verify both whichever tool you use.

Zendesk’s API returns content blocks as inline text inside article bodies, not as reusable blocks. Flag those articles in your spreadsheet if you need to recreate shared content, such as a standard pricing note, in the destination.

Step 4: Import the articles into your new help center

With a clean export and a complete article record, the import itself is the shortest part of the job. The right method depends on which direction you are moving, and the mapping work decides whether the result feels finished.

Use the import route your destination supports

Zendesk to Intercom: Use Intercom’s Zendesk article importer rather than building an export script solely for this route. Review where imported articles appear and how Zendesk metadata becomes Intercom tags. Tags rarely map one-to-one with sections, so expect some cleanup.
Intercom to Zendesk: Use Zendesk’s Help Center API to create the required authors, categories, and sections before you create articles. Add attachments where needed. Creating structure first prevents articles from landing in the wrong section or failing to import.
Either source to a new platform: Check whether the destination imports directly. Ferndesk supports importing from Intercom and Zendesk with URLs preserved, and it offers a done-for-you migration service if you would rather not run scripts at all.

Map content and access before publishing

Match each source article to its destination article in your spreadsheet so you can repair links between articles. An internal link that still points to the old domain is a quiet failure that customers find before you do.
Check that translations, images, attachments, and formatting display correctly. Then restore the intended public or restricted access for each article and language.
Keep the source URL and destination URL together in the same row. An imported article and a working redirect are separate things to verify.

Publish only once every row in your record has a destination URL, a confirmed access setting, and working media.

Step 5: Test the imported help center and its old links

Testing is where you find the problems your customers would otherwise report in support tickets.

Check what customers will actually open

Open representative articles in every language and access group, including articles with images or attachments. Log in as a restricted user and also browse as an anonymous visitor.
Follow links between articles, then search for a few common customer questions in the new help center. Use real phrasing from recent tickets, not your internal feature names.
Visit original article URLs and confirm they reach the matching new article. Intercom documents automatic redirects for Zendesk imports tied to its custom-domain setup; do not assume the same behavior for every migration route.
Compare article counts between source and destination. Investigate missing, duplicated, or unpublished content, especially articles that existed only in one language.
Submit the new sitemap to search engines and watch for crawl errors on old URLs over the following weeks.

Keep the source help center available until every box is checked, since it is your only reference if something went missing.

Where Ferndesk fits after the import

A migration fixes where your articles live. It does nothing about whether they are still accurate. Most teams discover during the move that a large share of their articles describe screens, settings, or flows that changed months ago.

Move your articles without inheriting stale instructions

Intercom’s Zendesk importer is a direct, well-supported route when Intercom is your destination. Zendesk’s API gives you full control over a custom migration when you need to reshape structure or filter content. Both do the moving job well, and neither changes how you keep articles current afterward.

If you are moving to Ferndesk, its importer brings in existing articles from either source with URLs preserved. After import, Fern monitors GitHub pull requests, changelogs, and support conversations from tools like Intercom and Zendesk, then drafts documentation updates for your review. Nothing goes live without your approval, and weekly audits flag broken links and outdated screenshots before customers hit them.

Frequently asked questions

Can you export Intercom or Zendesk articles as a CSV?

Do not expect a built-in article CSV export in either interface. Both APIs provide article data that you can transform into whatever format your destination accepts. Before you commit to a CSV, check how that format handles HTML, images, and translations, because flat files often strip all three.

Will imported articles keep their original URLs?

Treat URL preservation as something to verify, not assume. Check the destination’s URL mapping or redirects and test the old links, particularly when you are changing domains. Intercom describes specific custom-domain conditions for its Zendesk-import redirects, so read those before you switch DNS.

Do private articles and translations come across automatically?

Check your source permissions and destination settings article by article. Zendesk’s API filters results by the requesting user’s access, while Intercom’s Articles API exposes localization data. Neither fact alone guarantees matching visibility after import, so test restricted articles as both a permitted user and an anonymous visitor.

Conclusion

To export and import help center articles from Intercom or Zendesk, export through the source API unless a suitable destination importer removes that work, then import the content with its structure intact. Finish by testing links, media, languages, and access settings against your old-to-new record. Do that, and the move is complete, though keeping those articles accurate starts the day after.