Every diver eventually asks the same question, usually right after a dive log app gets discontinued, changes its pricing, or just stops feeling right: "how do I get my dives out of here?" The answer depends entirely on a decision you made, probably without noticing, the day you logged your first dive: whether that app supports open export formats or locks your data inside its own proprietary system.

What UDDF Actually Is

UDDF (Universal Dive Data Format) is an open, XML-based standard for dive log data, maintained specifically so dive computers, logging apps, and desktop software from completely different companies can exchange dive profiles, sites, and equipment data without any one company controlling the format.

It's not the only open format (CSV export covers basic dive summaries, and some tools support FIT files borrowed from the sports-tracking world), but UDDF is the closest thing recreational diving has to a universal, lossless format that preserves full dive profiles, not just summary stats like max depth and duration.

Why Proprietary Lock-In Is a Real Risk, Not a Hypothetical One

This isn't a theoretical concern. It's happened repeatedly in dive logging specifically:

• Apps get acquired and are discontinued or drastically changed.
• Manufacturers deprecate an app in favor of a new one and don't migrate historical data automatically.
• A company shuts down and its cloud-hosted logs become permanently inaccessible.
• A subscription lapses and "free" tier restrictions retroactively limit access to old logs.

In every one of these cases, divers who exported to UDDF or CSV along the way lost nothing. Divers whose entire log lived inside one company's proprietary database lost years of dive history, sometimes permanently.

What to Check Before You Commit to an App

Before you log your first dive in any app, spend two minutes checking:

Does it export at all? Some apps, especially free ones, treat export as a premium feature or don't offer it. If there's no export option anywhere in settings, treat that as a hard no.

Does it export the full dive profile, or just a summary? A CSV with date, max depth, and duration is better than nothing, but it's not your dive log, it's a spreadsheet about your dive log. UDDF export preserves the actual depth-over-time profile, temperature data, and gas switches, the stuff that makes a dive computer download worth having in the first place.

Can you import that export somewhere else? Export is only half the equation. Test that a competing app (or free desktop software like Subsurface) can actually read the file you exported. Format compliance varies more than it should between implementations.

Is export free, or locked behind a subscription you might cancel? An app that only lets you export while you're a paying subscriber isn't really giving you data portability, it's giving you a hostage negotiation. Genuine data ownership means export works whether you're on the free tier or not.

How Currents Handles This

Every dive logged in Currents can be exported as UDDF on the free tier, no subscription required, so the data that actually matters (your full dive profile) is never locked behind a paywall. CSV export, along with bulk export and scheduled backups, is part of Currents Pro. That's a deliberate split: the format that preserves your real dive history stays free forever, since genuine data ownership shouldn't depend on keeping a subscription active.

If you're evaluating logging apps generally, our dive log apps comparison breaks down export support across the major options, and our dive computer buying guide covers what to check on the hardware side before you're locked into an ecosystem from both directions at once.

The Bottom Line

You will likely change dive logging apps at some point over a diving lifetime, whether by choice or because an app changes under you. The only question is whether that transition costs you an afternoon exporting and re-importing a UDDF file, or costs you years of dive history you can never get back. Check export support before you commit, not after you need it.