Download a Notion Document as Markdown

By Joel Dare - Written March 22, 2026

You can download a Notion document (or database entry) in Markdown format. Here’s how:

Create an integration and get an API Key
Export your API key
Use CURL to download the page in markdown format

1. Create an integration and get an API key

You’ll need an API key. You’ll find this in your Notion settings.

Settings > Integrations:Connections > Develop or Manage Integrations

Develop or manage integrations

2. Export your API Key

In a terminal window you’ll need to export the API key. You can also put this in your ~/.zshrc or similar RC file.

export NOTION_API=[key]

3. Use CURL to download the page in markdown format

Next, hit the API with CURL. Run the following command:

curl -sS "https://api.notion.com/v1/pages/32b9b74270f18064ae8cd686d451dfba/markdown" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NOTION_TOKEN" \
  -H "Notion-Version: 2022-06-28"

Background

I haven’t been a big user of Notion. I’ve been turned off by the complexity of it in certain ways, especially with copy/paste problems due to their block editor. I’m also a bit old school and I like to print things. I’ve had trouble getting print output that I like from Notion. But, people seem to really love it. I introduced it at my day job a while back and it took off.

For my own work, however, I decided, long ago, that I would work with markdown. It keeps my articles portable and evergreen.

Today I found out that I can export Notion documents in Markdown format. This could be really helpful to me. It means I could probably create a backup of all my Notion documents in markdown format and it means I can export a document as markdown and print it using my typical tools.

Terms - Privacy