How to Save or Export SQL from a Notebook in Motherduck UI for Version Control

·Mar 27, 2026 07:40 AM·

I would like to save the SQL of a notebook, so that I can check it in and version control it. Gemini says that there is an "Export". feature in the Motherduck UI *in the upper right) but I can not see/find it. How can I save/export the SQL in a notebook?

5 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Yahia M.
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Hi Olaf, There is currently no save/export for notebooks in MotherDuck. I have forwarded your request to our product team. Can you tell me more about your use case?
Olaf B.
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My Notebooks have grown into more complicated sql: One wrong click and all this valuable sql would be gone. I would like to bring this under somewhat stricter version control.
Olaf B.
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Ok, then I'm left with copy and Paste into an editor :(
Yahia M.
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If this is a blocker, a potential workaround would be to use the duckdb UI: duckdb -ui & connect to MotherDuck Notebooks created in the UI are stored locally, and can be queried using:
duckdb -json ~/.duckdb/extension_data/ui/ui.db \ -c 'select title,json from ui.main.notebook_versions where expires is null'
Olaf B.
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I used "Copy Notbook" and then Rename with a "Version Number" as a work-around to proper version control.
🙌1

Yahia M.
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Hi Olaf, There is currently no save/export for notebooks in MotherDuck. I have forwarded your request to our product team. Can you tell me more about your use case?
Olaf B.
·
·
My Notebooks have grown into more complicated sql: One wrong click and all this valuable sql would be gone. I would like to bring this under somewhat stricter version control.
Olaf B.
·
·
Ok, then I'm left with copy and Paste into an editor :(
Yahia M.
·
·
If this is a blocker, a potential workaround would be to use the duckdb UI: duckdb -ui & connect to MotherDuck Notebooks created in the UI are stored locally, and can be queried using:
duckdb -json ~/.duckdb/extension_data/ui/ui.db \ -c 'select title,json from ui.main.notebook_versions where expires is null'
Olaf B.
·
·
I used "Copy Notbook" and then Rename with a "Version Number" as a work-around to proper version control.
🙌1