Laravel GDPR Exporter

A lightweight Livewire component for exporting user data in multiple GDPR-compliant formats: JSON, CSV, XML, and HTML.

✨ Features

• Export authenticated user data in:
  • ✅ JSON
  • ✅ CSV
  • ✅ XML
  • ✅ HTML
• Automatically loads all Eloquent relations
• Filter out ID columns and other columns ending in _id or _by
• Streamed downloads
• Beautifully formatted output
• Built with Livewire 3
• Configurable relation detection (reflection or whitelist)
• Customizable export settings

🧰 Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Laravel 10+
• Livewire 3+

📦 Installation

composer require milenmk/laravel-gdpr-exporter

🚀 Usage

1. Add the Livewire component in your Blade view:

   <livewire:gdpr-exporter />
   

2. Optional: Publish the configuration file:

   php artisan vendor:publish --tag=laravel-gdpr-exporter-config
   

3. Optional: Publish the Blade view if you want to customize the UI:

   php artisan vendor:publish --tag=laravel-gdpr-exporter-views
   

   This will publish the file in resources/views/vendor/laravel-gdpr-exporter/livewire/gdpr.blade.php

📁 Export Formats

⚙️ Configuration

The package provides several configuration options in config/gdpr-exporter.php:

User Model

Specify the user model class to use for GDPR exports:

'user_model' => env('GDPR_USER_MODEL', 'App\Models\User'),

Relations Detection

Choose between automatic reflection-based detection or explicit whitelist:

'relations_detection' => [
    'method' => env('GDPR_RELATIONS_METHOD', 'whitelist'), // 'reflection' or 'whitelist'
    
    // When using 'whitelist' method, only these relations will be loaded
    'whitelist' => [
        // Example: 'posts', 'profile', 'roles', 'permissions'
    ],
    
    // When using 'reflection' method, these methods will be excluded
    'excluded_methods' => [
        'delete', 'destroy', 'forceDelete', 'restore', 'save',
        // ... more methods listed in the config file
    ],
],

Export Settings

Configure how data is processed during export:

'export' => [
    // Whether to remove ID fields from the exported data
    'remove_ids' => env('GDPR_REMOVE_IDS', true),
    
    // Whether to flatten pivot table data in the export
    'flatten_pivot' => env('GDPR_FLATTEN_PIVOT', true),
],

🧠 How It Works

• Uses reflection to detect all Eloquent relationships on the User model.
• Loads relations and transforms the entire user structure to an array.
• Removes internal ID fields and flattens pivot data.
• Outputs the cleaned data in the selected format.

🔧 Troubleshooting

"Table 'notifications' doesn't exist" Error

If you encounter an error like SQLSTATE[42S02]: Base table or view not found: 1146 Table 'notifications' doesn't exist, this happens when your User model uses the Notifiable trait but you don't have the notifications database table (common when using only email notifications).

Solutions:

1. Use Whitelist Method (Recommended): Configure the package to use the whitelist method and only include the relations you want to export:

   // config/gdpr-exporter.php
   'relations_detection' => [
       'method' => 'whitelist',
       'whitelist' => [
           'posts', 'profile', 'roles', // Add your actual relations here
           // Don't include 'notifications' if you don't have the table
       ],
   ],
   

2. Exclude Notifications from Reflection: If you prefer using reflection, add 'notifications' to the excluded methods:

   // config/gdpr-exporter.php
   'relations_detection' => [
       'method' => 'reflection',
       'excluded_methods' => [
           // ... other excluded methods
           'notifications', // Add this line
       ],
   ],
   

3. Create the Notifications Table: If you want to support database notifications in the future:

   php artisan notifications:table
   php artisan migrate
   

The package now includes built-in error handling that will gracefully skip relations that cause database errors, but using the whitelist method is still the safest approach.

Contributing

You can review the source code, report bugs, or contribute to the project by visiting the GitHub repository:

GitHub Repository

Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests. Contributions are welcome!

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG.md for more information on what has changed recently.

Support My Work

If this package saves you time, you can support ongoing development:
👉 Become a Patron

Other Packages

Check out my other Laravel packages:

• Laravel GDPR Cookie Manager - GDPR-compliant cookie consent management with user preference tracking
• Laravel Blacklist - A Laravel package for blacklist validation of user input
• Laravel Email Change Confirmation - Secure email change confirmation system
• Laravel Locations - Add Countries, Cities, Areas, Languages and Currencies models to your Laravel application
• Laravel Rate Limiting - Advanced rate limiting capabilities with exponential backoff
• Laravel Datatables and Forms - Easy to use package to create datatables and forms for Livewire components

License

This package is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.

Disclaimer

This package is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement.

The author(s) make no guarantees regarding the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the code, and shall not be held liable for any damages or losses arising from its use.

Please ensure you thoroughly test this package in your environment before deploying it to production.