11 September 2025

How to Bulk Export Fusion 360 Files

If you’ve ever worked with Autodesk Fusion 360, you’ve probably hit the same frustration I did: exporting files one by one.

It’s fine if you only have a handful of projects, but if you’re working with a large library of designs, it quickly becomes a huge time sink.

Unfortunately, Fusion 360 doesn’t provide a native bulk export option. Sure, you can manually open each design and export it as a .STEP, .IGES, .STL, or whatever format you need, but doing that dozens, or hundreds of times, is just painful.

So I looked into third-party tools. There are a few scripts, add-ins, and APIs floating around the community, but none quite fit my workflow. Some were outdated, others lacked flexibility so I decided: why not build my own?

Get started on GitHub

Why Bulk Export Matters

- Version control & backups - If you use Git or another version control system for CAD data, you’ll want all your designs exported in a standard neutral format (STEP, for example).

- Collaboration - Teammates, clients, or manufacturers might not be on Fusion 360. Exporting everything makes it easy to share.

- Automation & consistency - Instead of forgetting a file or exporting the wrong version, a bulk process ensures everything is handled the same way, every time.

Challenges Along the Way

Building a bulk export script for Fusion 360 turned out to be a lot trickier than I first imagined. The Fusion API is powerful, but it comes with some quirks. Here are a few of the biggest challenges I ran into:

1. Handling Versions

Fusion 360 keeps every iteration of your design as a separate version. Deciding how many of those to export was tricky. Should I grab just the latest? The last n versions? All of them?

I ended up writing a function that lets you choose:

- Current only (fastest, cleanest).

- Previous N versions (useful for rollbacks).

- All versions (for full history exports).

2. Managing File Formats

Fusion doesn’t just save as. Each format - STEP, IGES, STL, Fusion Archive - has its own export options and behaviors. I had to create a consistent process that:

- Skips files that already exist (to save time).

- Executes the right export option for each format.

- Keeps naming safe across OSes (Windows, macOS) by sanitizing file names.

3. Preserving Project Structure

Fusion projects live in a Hub -> Project -> Folder -> File hierarchy. If you dump everything into one folder, it’s chaos.

I built logic to optionally preserve the hub/project/folder structure locally, so exports mirror what you see in the Data Panel.

4. Sketch DXF Export

A hidden gem in Fusion’s API is the ability to export sketches as DXF. But traversing a design’s components and occurrences recursively to grab every sketch took a bit of work. Without this, you’d miss out on 2D data.

5. Keeping Things Stable

Opening and closing lots of designs in a loop can make Fusion unstable. To prevent crashes, I:

- Used context managers to open/close docs cleanly.

- Added error handling around every export.

- Logged all results (saved/skipped/failed) so you know what happened.

6. User Experience

I didn’t want this to just be a script - you shouldn’t need to edit code every time you want to run it. So I wrapped it in a simple UI inside Fusion:

- Pick export formats from checkboxes.

- Choose how many versions to include.

- Toggle sketch export and folder preservation.

- See progress in a progress bar with cancel support.

The Result

The end result is a custom bulk export add-in for Fusion 360 that saves me hours of repetitive work. Now, when I want to back up or share my designs, I just run my script and walk away - everything’s neatly exported without the manual grind.

Features include:

- Export to STEP, IGES, STL, Fusion Archive (F3D).

- Optional sketch export to DXF.

- Control over versions (latest only, previous N, or all).

- Duplicate detection (skips files that already exist).

- Preserved hub/project/folder structure.

- Logging of every saved, skipped, and failed export.

- Progress bar with cancel support.

Get started on GitHub

Getting Started

1. Clone or download the repo from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/lazarcloud/Fusion-360-Project-Downloader

2. Place the folder into your Fusion 360 Scripts and Add-Ins directory.

Scripts Menu

3. Launch Fusion 360, open Scripts and Add-Ins, and run Downloader.

Options Menu

4. Configure your options (formats, versions, structure, etc.), hit Export, and watch it go.

Script Running

What started as a small annoyance turned into a full-fledged solution that makes working with Fusion 360 far smoother. Bulk exporting is no longer a manual grind, it’s automated, structured, and reliable.

I built this tool for myself, but it’s open for the community too. If you’ve been stuck exporting files one at a time, give it a try, and if you have ideas for improvements, contributions are always welcome.

Get started on GitHub