airbyte/docs/integrations/destinations/csv.md

Local CSV

:::danger

This destination is meant to be used on a local workstation and won't work on Kubernetes

:::

Overview

This destination writes data to a directory on the local filesystem on the host running Airbyte. By default, data is written to /tmp/airbyte_local. To change this location, modify the LOCAL_ROOT environment variable for Airbyte.

:::caution

Please make sure that Docker Desktop has access to /tmp (and /private on a MacOS, as /tmp has a symlink that points to /private. It will not work otherwise). You allow it with "File sharing" in Settings -> Resources -> File sharing -> add the one or two above folder and hit the "Apply & restart" button.

:::

Sync Overview

Output schema

Each stream will be output into its own file. Each file will contain 3 columns:

• _airbyte_ab_id: a uuid assigned by Airbyte to each event that is processed.
• _airbyte_emitted_at: a timestamp representing when the event was pulled from the data source.
• _airbyte_data: a json blob representing with the event data.

Features

Feature	Supported
Full Refresh Sync	Yes
Incremental - Append Sync	Yes
Incremental - Append + Deduped	No
Namespaces	No

Performance considerations

This integration will be constrained by the speed at which your filesystem accepts writes.

Getting Started

The destination_path will always start with /local whether it is specified by the user or not. Any directory nesting within local will be mapped onto the local mount.

By default, the LOCAL_ROOT env variable in the .env file is set /tmp/airbyte_local.

The local mount is mounted by Docker onto LOCAL_ROOT. This means the /local is substituted by /tmp/airbyte_local by default.

Example:

• If destination_path is set to /local/cars/models
• the local mount is using the /tmp/airbyte_local default
• then all data will be written to /tmp/airbyte_local/cars/models directory.

Access Replicated Data Files

If your Airbyte instance is running on the same computer that you are navigating with, you can open your browser and enter file:///tmp/airbyte_local to look at the replicated data locally. If the first approach fails or if your Airbyte instance is running on a remote server, follow the following steps to access the replicated files:

1. Access the scheduler container using docker exec -it airbyte-server bash
2. Navigate to the default local mount using cd /tmp/airbyte_local
3. Navigate to the replicated file directory you specified when you created the destination, using cd /{destination_path}
4. List files containing the replicated data using ls
5. Execute cat {filename} to display the data in a particular file

You can also copy the output file to your host machine, the following command will copy the file to the current working directory you are using:

docker cp airbyte-server:/tmp/airbyte_local/{destination_path}/{filename}.csv .

Note: If you are running Airbyte on Windows with Docker backed by WSL2, you have to use similar step as above or refer to this link for an alternative approach.

Changelog

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Version	Date	Pull Request	Subject
1.0.2	2025-03-21	55906	Upgrade to airbyte/java-connector-base:2.0.1 for M4 compatibility.
1.0.1	2024-12-18	49864	Use a base image: airbyte/java-connector-base:1.0.0
1.0.0	2022-12-20	17998	Breaking changes: non backwards compatible. Adds delimiter dropdown.
0.2.10	2022-06-20	13932	Merging published connector changes
0.2.9	2022-02-14	10256	Add ExitOnOutOfMemoryError to java connectors and bump versions
0.2.8	2021-07-21	3555	Checkpointing: Partial Success in BufferedStreamConsumer (Destination)
0.2.7	2021-06-09	3973	add AIRBYTE_ENTRYPOINT for kubernetes support
0.2.6	2021-05-25	3290	Checkpointing: Worker use destination (instead of source) for state
0.2.5	2021-05-10	3327	don't split lines on LSEP unicode characters when reading lines in destinations
0.2.4	2021-05-10	3289	bump all destination versions to support outputting messages
0.2.3	2021-03-31	2668	Add SupportedDestinationSyncModes to destination specs objects
0.2.2	2021-03-19	2460	Destinations supports destination sync mode
0.2.0	2021-03-09	2238	Upgrade all connectors (0.2.0) so protocol allows future / unknown properties
0.1.8	2021-01-29	1882	Local File Destinations UX change with destination paths
0.1.7	2021-01-20	1737	Rename destination tables
0.1.6	2021-01-19	1708	Add metadata prefix to destination internal columns
0.1.5	2020-12-12	1294	Incremental CSV destination
0.1.4	2020-11-30	1038	Change jdbc sources to discover more than standard schemas
0.1.3	2020-11-20	1021	Incremental Docs and Data Model Update
0.1.2	2020-11-18	998	Adding incremental to the data model
0.1.1	2020-11-10	895	bump versions: all destinations and source exchange rate
0.1.0	2020-10-21	676	Integrations Reorganization: Connectors