topic Re: Content Migration item types, and comparison of .epk (Rest API) vs API for Python in ArcGIS API for Python Questions

Content Migration item types, and comparison of .epk (Rest API) vs API for Python

VerinaCristie — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 09:53:28 GMT

I'm trying to understand the different item types supported for these 2 APIs,

Cloning Content | ArcGIS API for Python | Esri Developer

Cloning via Offline Backups | ArcGIS API for Python | Esri Developer

Are both supporting the same file types to be migrated? For the offline backups, is there limitations in terms of number of items and backup size?

For the offline API, is it fundamentally different than the REST API? When should the Python vs the REST API version be used?

/export: Export Group Content | ArcGIS REST APIs | Esri Developer

Many thanks for sharing..

Re: Content Migration item types, and comparison of .epk (Rest API) vs API for Python

CodyPatterson — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 14:48:27 GMT

Hey @VerinaCristie

The REST API is only used for Enterprise versions, some people prefer to use the REST endpoints when managing their environment, it's more just an alternative to the Python API itself.

In terms of the file types, they do almost the same thing from what I'm seeing, but in terms of Offline, they export to some type of compressed version, be it FGDB or shapefile, while online export will export it to the actual type it is, Web Map, Survery123 Forum, etc. Offline also seems to export to an intermediate step file that would be reimported, explained here as .contentexport and so on: https://developers.arcgis.com/python/latest/api-reference/arcgis.gis.toc.html#arcgis.gis.OfflineContentManager.export_items

Cody

Re: Content Migration item types, and comparison of .epk (Rest API) vs API for Python

VerinaCristie — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 03:32:53 GMT

thanks Cody!

Re: Content Migration item types, and comparison of .epk (Rest API) vs API for Python

JackDrost — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:29:16 GMT

Is there any way to open / read a ".contentexport" file, apart from using the ArcGIS API for Python?

Re: Content Migration item types, and comparison of .epk (Rest API) vs API for Python

PeterKnoop — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 19:18:40 GMT

@JackDrost it is a zip file. If you manually open it in something like 7-Zip, then it will figure it out. Otherwise, you can always replace the suffix ".contentexport" with ".zip", and use your favorite method for zip files.

Re: Content Migration item types, and comparison of .epk (Rest API) vs API for Python

JackDrost — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:14:48 GMT

Thanks! Renaming it to ".ZIP" actually did not work for me but I made a wild guess and tried renaming it to ".7z" and that worked. I can now open the folder and see the .json files, folders, etc.