How to export your Instantly Unibox replies: all 3 ways

Last updated: July 4, 2026 · Applies to Instantly's v2 API.

Short answer: Instantly has no native bulk export for the Unibox — their help center says so directly. To get your replies out you can (1) write a small script against the v2 /emails API, (2) use the free open-source instantly-cli, or (3) use ReplyVault, a one-click Chrome extension. All three need an Instantly plan with API access (currently Hypergrowth and above).

Way 1: Natively, from the dashboard — you can't (here's what exists instead)

Instantly's own help center is direct about it:

"There is no direct way to bulk export all Unibox replies from the interface." — Instantly Help Center, "How to Export Data from Your Instantly Account"

The only in-interface option is copying replies out one email at a time. Bulk Unibox export is a long-standing feature request; Instantly's help doc itself points API-capable users at the Email API instead.

What the dashboard does export natively: your leads (CSV), campaign email activity (CSV of events — sends, opens, clicks, reply timestamps, but not reply text), email accounts (CSV), your blocklist (CSV), and campaign analytics as a JPG image. If you're leaving the platform, grab those too — we made a separate pre-cancellation backup checklist.

Way 2: Script the v2 API yourself (free, technical)

Plan requirement (applies to ways 2 and 3): the API needs an Instantly plan with API access — currently Hypergrowth and above. Instantly's docs are inconsistent about which tiers include it; what the app actually enforces (as of July 2026) is that Growth and trial accounts can't create v2 API keys.

The genuinely useful facts, so you don't have to reverse-engineer them:

• Endpoint: GET https://api.instantly.ai/api/v2/emails, authenticated with Authorization: Bearer <your v2 key> (create the key in Instantly → Settings → Integrations → API).
• Pagination: cursor-based. Each response has items and next_starting_after; pass that value back as starting_after to get the next page. Stop when the cursor is absent — not when a page comes back short.
• Page size: limit=100 max.
• Rate limit: this endpoint allows 20 requests/minute — so ~2,000 emails/minute is the ceiling for every tool, including ours.
• Filters: campaign_id, min_timestamp_created, max_timestamp_created, email_type (received/sent/manual), sort_order.

The core loop is about a dozen lines (Node 18+):

const KEY = process.env.INSTANTLY_API_KEY;
const sleep = (ms) => new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, ms));
let cursor = null;
const all = [];
while (true) {
  const url = 'https://api.instantly.ai/api/v2/emails?limit=100'
            + (cursor ? '&starting_after=' + cursor : '');
  const res = await fetch(url, { headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer ' + KEY } });
  if (res.status === 429) { await sleep(15000); continue; }  // rate-limited: back off
  const page = await res.json();
  all.push(...page.items);
  if (!page.next_starting_after) break;   // no cursor = you have everything
  cursor = page.next_starting_after;
  await sleep(3000);                      // stay under 20 requests/min
}

Honest effort estimate: the loop above is the easy 80% and takes maybe half an hour. A version you'd trust with a 50,000-email mailbox also needs retry/backoff that honors Retry-After, a resume checkpoint so a crash at email 40,000 doesn't restart from zero, a second call to GET /api/v2/campaigns to turn campaign IDs into names, and real RFC 4180 CSV escaping with a UTF-8 BOM so Excel doesn't mangle commas, quotes, or non-English text. Budget an afternoon to a day.

Field gotchas we hit building on this API:

• body is an object { text, html } — HTML-only emails need tag-stripping if you want a plain-text column.
• to_address_email_list is a comma-separated string, not an array (fun inside CSV).
• Emails carry only campaign_id, never the campaign name.
• ue_type marks direction: 1 = sent from campaign, 2 = received, 3 = sent manually, 4 = scheduled (queued mail, not history).
• There's no total-count endpoint, so you can't show "X of Y" progress.

The free CLI route: instantly-cli

If you'd rather not write the loop yourself, instantly-cli (open source, MIT, TypeScript) is a solid general-purpose CLI and MCP server covering Instantly's whole v2 API — 156 commands, including listing and fetching Unibox emails (npm install -g instantly-cli, then e.g. instantly email list --json). It's the best free option if you live in a terminal. Fair caveats: it's not an export-specialist tool, so paging through a large mailbox and converting the JSON output into a clean CSV is still on you — and it needs the same API-capable plan.

Way 3: ReplyVault — the one-click version

Full disclosure: ReplyVault is our product. This page exists because we built the third option — the two routes above are real, free, and might be all you need.

ReplyVault is a Chrome/Edge extension that does everything in way 2 for you: paste your API key, pick filters (date, campaign, direction), and it exports your whole Unibox to Excel-ready CSV or JSON — pacing itself at the rate limit, resolving campaign names, surviving closed tabs mid-export. It runs entirely in your browser: your key and emails go only to Instantly, never to us.

The free tier exports your newest 200 emails with no license; unlimited is a $49 one-time license. Same hard requirement as the other API routes: an Instantly plan with API access (currently Hypergrowth and above) — if your settings show no API section, no tool on this page can help until you upgrade.

Add ReplyVault to Chrome — free

The 3 ways, compared

Whichever way you pick, the export speed is identical — Instantly's 20 requests/minute limit (~2,000 emails/minute) is the ceiling for everyone.

Related

• Backing up your Instantly account before you cancel or downgrade — the full pre-cancellation checklist.
• ReplyVault setup guide — install, API key, export, troubleshooting.