Store Exporter Deluxe settings

Your CSV opens in Excel with every value in a single column, your dates look swapped, or a run on the Archives screen has no file to download. The cause is often a setting on the Settings screen in Store Exporter Deluxe.

This article is a reference, not a walkthrough. Each section lists the options you can see and change, their defaults, and when to change them. The two settings that matter most for support, Character Encoding and Field Delimiter, come first.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Details
Plugin version	Store Exporter Deluxe 5.4.5 or later, with the sidebar dashboard (not the older tab-bar admin)
Permissions	Your WordPress account needs the manage_woocommerce capability
Where to find it	Open WooCommerce → Store Export, then select Settings in the SYSTEM section of the sidebar

How the Settings screen works

The screen has three parts. A category list sits on the left, the options for the selected category sit in the middle, and a Configuration Summary sits on the right. The categories are General, Export Formats, Archives, Scheduling, CRON Exports, Orders, Export Triggers, Advanced, Audit Log, and Danger Zone.

Changes don’t save on their own. Select Save Changes at the top of the screen (the button reads Saved! for a few seconds afterwards). While you have edits waiting, a bar at the bottom shows how many unsaved changes you have. Use Reset Changes in that bar, or Reset Defaults at the top, to discard those edits and go back to your last saved values.

Settings apply to your whole store, unless a scheduled export sets its own value. A setting you change here affects the next export you run, whether you start it from Quick Export, a scheduled export, or an order trigger. A scheduled export can set its own Column Delimiter, Excel Formulas and Header Formatting, and those values win for that export.

Character encoding and delimiter settings

These settings decide how text and columns are written to your file. They are the first place to look when a CSV opens badly in Excel. Field Delimiter applies to CSV files. Field Escape Formatting applies to CSV and TSV files. XLS and XLSX ignore both. For Excel files, see How to export WooCommerce data to Excel.

Character Encoding

Find this under General. It sets the encoding that your export names in the XML and RSS file declaration and in the download header. It doesn’t convert the text in a CSV file. The default is UTF-8.

Option	When to use it
UTF-8	Default. Keep it unless the tool you import XML or RSS into asks for something else
UTF-16	Only when the program reading the file asks for UTF-16
ISO-8859-1	Older systems that expect Western European Latin text
Windows-1252	Older Windows programs that expect this encoding

Add BOM Character

Also under General. It’s a Yes or No switch, and it’s Yes by default.

Field Delimiter

Find this under Export Formats, in the CSV Format panel. It’s the character that separates one cell from the next. The default is a comma (,). Enter a single character, or the word TAB.

You type	Result
,	Comma-separated file (default)
;	Semicolon-separated file
TAB	Tab-separated file. The Configuration Summary shows this as Tab

Change it to ; when Excel opens your CSV with every value in one column. Many regional versions of Excel expect a semicolon instead of a comma, because those regions use the comma as a decimal point.

Category Separator

Under Export Formats → CSV Format, next to Field Delimiter. It separates multiple categories on one product. The default is a pipe (|). Type LF to put each category on its own line inside the cell.

Line Ending Formatting

Under Export Formats → CSV Format. It has three options.

Option	Default
Windows / DOS (CRLF)	Yes
Unix (LF)	No
Mac (CR)	No

Field Escape Formatting

Under General. It controls how cells are quoted in CSV and TSV exports. XLS and XLSX aren’t affected.

Option	What it does	Default
Escape all cells	Wraps every cell in quotes, so field data is written exactly as it’s saved in the database	Yes
Escape cells as Excel would	Quotes a cell only where a delimiter, quote or line break makes it necessary	No
Do not escape any cells	Quotes nothing, except a field containing a line break	No

Do not escape any cells corrupts any field that contains your delimiter character. Leave it on Escape all cells unless you have a specific reason to change it.

Date Format

Find this under General. It sets how dates appear in your exports. The default is d/m/Y, which shows a date as 16/05/2026.

Option	Pattern	Example
May 16, 2026	F j, Y	May 16, 2026
2026/05/16	Y/m/d	2026/05/16
05/16/2026	m/d/Y	05/16/2026
16/05/2026	d/m/Y	16/05/2026
Custom	Your own pattern	Depends on the pattern

Select Custom to type your own pattern in the field. A live preview shows today’s date in that pattern as you type. Select a token chip to insert it, or pick one of the quick examples next to Try:. The chips cover these tokens:

Token	Meaning
Y	4-digit year
y	2-digit year
m	Month (01-12)
n	Month (1-12)
d	Day (01-31)
j	Day (1-31)
F	Month name
M	Short month
D	Short day
l	Full day name
/	Slash separator
-	Dash separator

For more tokens, select View formatting documentation to open the PHP date format reference. Pick Y-m-d if your import tool wants dates in year-month-day order.

If your dates look swapped (a 5th of June reading as 6 May), the format is set to a day-first or month-first pattern that doesn’t match what you expect. Choose the pattern you want and select Save Changes.

WordPress Object Cache

Find this under General. It has two options.

Option	Default
Flush before each export	Yes
Do not flush	No

Leave this on its default unless our support team asks you to change it.

Archives

Find this under Archives. The category has one switch, Enable Archives, and it’s off by default. When it’s on, a copy of each export is saved in a protected folder on your server. You download it from the Archives screen in the sidebar.

The Archives screen depends on this switch for its files. With it off, Quick Export runs still show on the Archives screen, but they have no Download link. A scheduled export or a new-order trigger that saves to the archive still keeps its file. For how archives work, see How to use export archives in Store Exporter Deluxe.

Export files such as Customers and Orders can contain personal data. Only logged-in users who can manage WooCommerce can download archived files from the Archives screen. The text on the Archives settings screen mentions the Media library. Archived files are kept in the protected folder described above, not in your public uploads.

You can also hide the Archives item from the sidebar under Advanced with Hide Archives Tab. That only removes the menu item. It doesn’t turn archiving on or off.

Scheduling

Find this under Scheduling. The category has one switch, Enable Scheduled Exports, and it’s off by default. When it’s on, each scheduled export runs automatically at the interval set inside that export. Scheduled exports run through Action Scheduler.

To stop a scheduled export, turn off its toggle on the Scheduled Exports screen. Its status changes to Paused, and a Paused export doesn’t run. Select Manage Scheduled Exports below the switch to open the scheduled exports list. For how to build one, see How to schedule exports in Store Exporter Deluxe.

Scheduling is not the same as CRON Exports. Scheduling runs exports on a timetable inside WordPress. CRON Exports lets an outside system trigger an export by calling a URL, and it needs a secret key. For that setup, see How to export via manual CRON.

Configuration Summary

The Configuration Summary box sits on the right of the screen and stays visible whichever category you open. It lists seven values at a glance.

Row	What it shows
Archives	Enabled or Disabled
Date Format	Your date pattern, for example d/m/Y
CSV Delimiter	Comma (,), Semicolon (;), Tab, or the character you typed
Character Encoding	Your chosen encoding, for example UTF-8
Object Cache	Flush Enabled or Disabled
Scheduled Exports	Enabled or Disabled
CRON	Enabled or Disabled

The summary updates as you change options, including edits you haven’t saved yet. So select Save Changes before you rely on it.

It’s most useful when you contact support. A screenshot of this box tells us your encoding, delimiter and date format in one glance, which are the settings behind most “my export looks wrong” reports.

Other settings in the General category

These sit alongside the settings above under General, in the order they appear on screen.

Setting	What it does	Default
Export Filename	A text field with token chips and a preview	export-{type}-{store}-{date}-{time}
Header Formatting	Include column headers or Exclude column headers	Include column headers
Excel Formulas	Allows Excel formulas in exported files. When off, formulas are stripped	Stripped
Restrict Image Embedding	Embeds images in XLS and XLSX exports only for columns that hold an image, such as Featured Image	Any column
Escape Formulas in CSV/TSV	Prefixes any CSV or TSV cell a spreadsheet would run as a formula with a single quote. Negative amounts and international phone numbers are left alone. XLS and XLSX are always protected	Escaped
Script Timeout	The longest an export can process before it stops. Options are 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour and Unlimited	Unlimited

Escape Formulas in CSV/TSV is greyed out while Excel Formulas is on. It applies only while Excel Formulas is set to Stripped.

Other categories

The remaining categories each have their own article or are covered where you use them.

Category	What it covers
Export Formats	Besides the CSV settings above, the XML Format panel (root attributes) and the RSS Format panel (Title Element, Link Element and Description Element)
CRON Exports	Remote export triggers through a URL, protected by an Export Secret Key
Orders	Export buttons and options on the WooCommerce orders screen
Export Triggers	Exports that run when a new order arrives
Advanced	Hide Archives Tab, Hide Scheduled Exports Tab, Enable Debugging Mode, Enable Logging Mode, and maintenance actions
Audit Log	The log of export runs. For detailed instructions, see How to use the Audit Log in Store Exporter Deluxe
Danger Zone	Destructive reset actions. Read each warning before you use one

XML root attributes

Under Export Formats → XML Format, the Attribute Display checkboxes choose which details appear on the root XML element. They appear in this order:

Checkbox	Default
Site Address	On
Site Title	On
Export Date	On
Export Time	Off
Export Type	On
Export Order By	Off
Export Order	Off
Limit Volume	Off
Volume Offset	Off

Troubleshooting

Frequently asked questions

Need help?

If you’re using Store Exporter Deluxe and a setting isn’t behaving as described, open a support ticket and include a screenshot of your Configuration Summary. Our team will help you track it down.

If you’re using the free Store Exporter plugin, ask on the WordPress.org support forum, and our team will get back to you there.