Import, Export & Backup

← Back to contents

Rest Hippo can exchange collections with other tools and back up your entire workspace. There are two separate features:

• Import / Export moves collections in and out. The native Rest Hippo v1 format is a lossless, full-fidelity archive (secrets kept, password-protected) that restores in place; the standard interchange formats (Postman, Insomnia, OpenAPI, HAR) are for sharing with other tools and redact secrets.
• Backup / Restore snapshots your whole workspace — collections, environments, and settings — with a choice of how to handle secrets.

Exporting

Export a single collection from its right-click menu (Export…), or export everything at once:

Choose a format:

In the interchange formats (Postman, Insomnia, OpenAPI, HAR), secrets — passwords, tokens, and keys — are redacted, so those exports are safe to share. Rest Hippo then opens a native save dialog.

The native Rest Hippo format

Rest Hippo v1 is a full-fidelity archive meant for round-tripping your own work — moving a collection between machines, or snapshotting it before a big edit. Unlike the interchange formats, it keeps everything about the exported requests: method, URL, query and path params, headers, the full Auth configuration for every scheme, captures, scripts, notes, and bodies.

• Variables travel referenced-only. The archive adds an environments section (your environments and global variables) and the collection's own variables — but only the ones the exported requests actually reference ({{name}}, followed transitively). Anything unused is left out, so exporting a single folder never drags in the rest of the collection's variables (or forces a password for secrets it doesn't use). A folder's own variables always travel inside that folder.
• Secrets are kept, not redacted. If the exported set contains any secret it actually uses (an auth credential or a referenced secure variable with a value), Rest Hippo asks you to choose a password and encrypts those values into the file with the same scheme as a password-protected backup. With no secrets, there's no prompt and the file is plain JSON. Treat a password-protected archive like a credential export — anyone with the file and the password can read its secrets.
• Import merges in place. Re-importing restores into your active collection rather than creating a duplicate: a folder that already exists (matched by id, then name) is reused and its contents restored into it; a request that already exists is replaced by the archived copy; anything new is created. Environments and variables are matched the same way and only added when missing — an existing value is never overwritten. A password-protected archive prompts for its password on import.

Importing

Open File → Import Collection… and pick a file. Rest Hippo recognizes the format automatically:

• Rest Hippo v1 native archives (.json) — merged in place (see above)
• Postman collections (.json)
• Insomnia exports (.json / .yaml)
• OpenAPI 3 / Swagger 2.0 specifications (.json / .yaml)
• HAR 1.2 captures (.har)

The file picker filters to these formats — .json, .yaml / .yml, and .har. On macOS, hovering the Import Collection… menu item also shows this list as a tooltip (native menu tooltips are a macOS-only feature, so on Windows and Linux this page is the reference).

It reconstructs the folder structure, requests, headers, query, auth, and variables, and adds them to your workspace as a new collection. A HAR capture (a browser's "Save all as HAR", or a proxy export) is imported request by request — grouped into a folder per host — so you can replay real traffic; only the requests are imported, not the recorded responses.

Import from cURL

To pull in a single request from a terminal, API docs, or a browser's Copy as cURL, choose File → Import from cURL… and paste the command:

curl https://api.example.com/users \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer ...' \
  -d '{"name":"Ada"}'

Rest Hippo parses the method, URL and query, headers, body (-d / --data*, --data-urlencode, and -F form fields), and authentication — a -u user:pass or an Authorization: Bearer/Basic header is lifted into the request's Auth tab rather than left as a raw header. The result is added as a new collection, ready to send.

Tip — paste a cURL straight onto a request. You can also paste a curl … command directly into a request's URL bar. Rest Hippo recognizes it and rewrites that request to match the command (method, URL, params, headers, body, auth), instead of dropping the raw text into the field. A brand-new, empty request is updated in place; if the request already has content, Rest Hippo asks you to confirm before overwriting it.

Backup & restore

A backup captures your complete workspace in one file. Open it from the app's File menu (Back up… / Restore…).

When creating a backup, choose how secrets are handled:

Restoring reads a backup file (prompting for the password if it's password-protected) and lets you Merge it alongside your current collections or Replace everything with the backup's contents.

Use This machine only for routine local backups (no password to remember), and Password-protected when you need to move a full workspace — secrets and all — to another machine.

Next: Settings & Themes →