Habeas

PayPal

Download all your PayPal transaction history at once

PayPal does let you download activity reports, but they arrive separately from everything else you are trying to keep, and pulling them regularly is a manual chore you have to remember.

What you get

Habeas is an open-source browser extension that collects your documents from PayPal and saves them wherever you choose. From this source it extracts:

How it works

It is not a service that connects to paypal.com on its own. It runs inside your own browser, reusing the session you already have open:

  1. Sign in yourself

    You go to paypal.com and sign in yourself, as always, with your MFA or whatever code you use.

  2. Habeas reuses that session

    Habeas reuses that already-authenticated session to request your documents, exactly as the site itself does.

  3. You choose where it goes

    You choose the destination: a download, a local folder, your Google Drive, Dropbox, WebDAV, S3 or an endpoint of your own.

Your password is never read, never stored and never sent anywhere, and nothing runs in the background while you are away. This is an audited source, verified by the project against the real service.

What PayPal actually gives you

PayPal does not issue an invoice per movement, so what there is to keep is the activity record — your purchase history: the payments you have sent and received, each with its date, amount, currency and counterparty. Habeas collects them by paging the same call the site itself makes when you hit “load more”, and leaves them normalised in the manifest alongside your other sources.

How far back it goes

There is no retention cliff here like there is on other services: the query accepts a wide date window and walks a cursor until the history runs out, so it reaches as far back as your own account does.

Worth knowing about this source

Worth knowing: Habeas is not here because PayPal hides your history — it does not. It is here so that history lands in the same archive as your other services, automatically, without a monthly detour through the export screen.

Frequently asked questions

Is PayPal activity the same as my transaction history?

Yes. PayPal calls it Activity in its own menus, while most people search for their transaction history, purchase history or order history. It is the same record: every payment in and out of your account, in both directions. Habeas reads that record, so whichever name you know it by, that is what you get.

How far back do PayPal records go?

As far back as your own account does. Unlike services that cut you off after three or five years, there is no retention cliff here: the query takes a wide date window and walks a cursor until the history runs out. What usually limits people is the range they pick on the export screen, not the record itself.

How do I download my PayPal purchase history?

Two ways, and the honest answer is that PayPal already offers one: you can request an activity report from your own account and download it by hand, every time you want it. Habeas is the other: it reads the same activity from the session you already have open and writes it wherever you keep everything else, so there is no chore to repeat.

Can I keep my own archive of PayPal activity?

Yes, and that is what this source is for: a copy that lives with you rather than inside an account you might one day lose access to. Archive here means your own durable copy — every payment sent and received, in the same shape as the rest of your services — not a setting inside PayPal.

Can I download my PayPal transactions as PDFs?

No, because PayPal does not issue a PDF per movement. What you get is each operation's data in the normalised manifest. If you need one specific receipt, it is still on PayPal's own site.

How is this different from the export PayPal already offers?

PayPal does let you download activity reports, but it is a manual chore you have to repeat and the result lands on its own. Here the history ends up in the same archive as your other services, in the same shape, without a monthly detour through the export screen.

Does it pick up payments I received, not just ones I made?

Yes. Personal activity covers movements in both directions, and each one is tagged with its direction.

Does Habeas store my PayPal password?

No. You sign in yourself, on the usual website, including any verification code. Habeas reuses the session your browser already has open and never reads or stores your credentials.

Is my data sent to a server?

No. Everything happens inside your browser. Documents only go to the destination you pick: a download, a folder on your machine, your own Google Drive or Dropbox, or an endpoint you configure.

What format do I get the documents in?

The original documents exactly as the service issues them (JSON), together with a manifest holding the normalised data.

Is it free?

Yes. Habeas is free software under the AGPL-3.0 licence and its code is public on GitHub.

What has changed in this source

This source is a public definition, and every change to it is on the record. Most recent first:

More banks, cards & investments guides

Your service is not on the list?

Habeas can learn a new one without any code. Record mode watches the site’s own API while you browse it normally and drafts the source for you; you test it against your own account, and then keep it to yourself or share it so everyone gets it. That is where most of the catalog came from.

Other sources

Habeas works with more Spanish and international services. See the full catalog or read why Habeas exists.