Export, Import, and HADS

Export, Import, and HADS

Drag & Drop Card supports exporting and importing both full dashboard designs and individual cards. This makes it easier to back up your work, move layouts between dashboards, share designs with other users, or use dashboards from HADS.

HADS means Home Assistant Dashboard Store. It is the place to discover and share ready-made dashboard designs for Drag & Drop Card.

Dashboard export

Use dashboard export when you want to save or share the entire Drag & Drop Card canvas.

Open edit mode, go to Import & Share in the toolbar, and click Export.

The exported file is a JSON design file. It includes the dashboard layout, cards, tabs, layers, responsive layouts, connectors, backgrounds, screen saver settings, packages, and most dashboard settings.

A dashboard export is useful for backing up a finished dashboard, moving a layout to another Home Assistant instance, sharing a complete design with another user, uploading a dashboard design to HADS, and testing changes safely before importing a different design.

Before importing another dashboard, it is a good idea to export your current dashboard first.

Dashboard import

Use dashboard import when you want to load a full dashboard design from a JSON file.

Open edit mode, go to Import & Share, click Import, and choose the exported design file.

Importing a dashboard replaces the current Drag & Drop Card design with the imported one. The card keeps its own local storage key, so importing a shared design should not overwrite the imported design's original storage key.

After import, the dashboard is saved and may reload so the new layout, settings, tabs, layers, backgrounds, and responsive layouts are applied cleanly.

Important: imported dashboards do not install missing Home Assistant integrations, entities, or custom cards. If the design uses cards or entities that do not exist in your system, you may need to edit those cards after import.

Card export

Use card export when you only want to share or move one card from the canvas.

Open the card settings for a card and choose Export card.

A card export includes the card configuration, size, position, z-index, responsive variants, layer membership where possible, per-card styling, and connected lines that belong to that card.

This is useful when you have built a special widget, HTML card, table card, line setup, or reusable design element that you want to use somewhere else.

Card import

Single-card imports use the same Import button as dashboard imports. Drag & Drop Card automatically detects whether the selected file is a full dashboard design or a single-card export.

When importing a card, the card is added to the currently active tab. It gets a new internal card ID so it does not conflict with existing cards. If the card export includes responsive layouts or connectors, Drag & Drop Card tries to preserve those as well.

If the imported card used layers, the target dashboard should have matching layer IDs. Otherwise, you may need to reassign the card to the correct layers after import.

HADS

HADS is the Home Assistant Dashboard Store for Drag & Drop Card designs.

Use HADS to browse dashboard designs, download dashboard JSON files, share your own exported dashboards, and find inspiration for wall panels, tablets, room dashboards, and control surfaces.

You can open HADS from the Import & Share section in the toolbar.

A HADS dashboard is still a Drag & Drop Card export file. Download the design from HADS, then import it using the normal Import button.

Before sharing a design

Before uploading or sharing a design, review the exported file.

A design may include entity IDs, area names, card names, background URLs, YouTube URLs, package YAML, screen saver entities, and custom card configuration.

It should not include Home Assistant login credentials, but package YAML or custom HTML can contain personal information if you added it manually.

For best results, include a short note with your shared design explaining required custom cards, integrations, entities, screen size, and whether the design was built for fixed Full HD, auto scaling, tablet, or mobile.

Settings reference