Why Your Tinder or Hinge Export Won't Upload to RizzStats (And How to Fix It)

Photo: Plann, via Pexels

You did the annoying part. You requested your data, waited, got the email, downloaded the file. Then you dragged it into RizzStats and got an error instead of a Rizz Score.

This happens more than it should, and almost never because something is broken. Export files from Tinder and Hinge are messier than they look, and RizzStats is picky about them on purpose. Here's what's actually going on, and how to get past each error.

First, check what you actually got

Tinder's export arrives as a single zip you request from account.gotinder.com/data, reachable from Settings → Account → Download my data in the app. The email typically lands within two to four days, though Tinder's own GDPR terms allow up to 30. Inside is a data.json file plus an index.html viewer and a photos folder. One catch worth knowing: the download link in that email is only valid for 24 hours, so if you sat on it, request a new one rather than debugging a half-downloaded file.

Hinge works differently. You request it from inside the app (Settings → Download My Data → pick your country → confirm your email), and Hinge quotes up to 30 days depending on file size and how backed up their queue is. When it's ready, the link stays live for 48 hours and unpacks into a zip containing both readable pages and structured JSON, including a file usually named matches.json.

What RizzStats actually needs from that zip

You don't have to unzip anything yourself. RizzStats accepts the zip exactly as downloaded and unpacks it in your browser, or you can hand it the individual JSON files if you've already extracted them. But it's looking for specific files inside:

• Tinder: a data.json, anywhere in the zip.
• Hinge: both matches.json and account.json. This is the single most common Hinge upload failure. It's easy to grab the interaction history and miss the account file, since the Hinge export splits your profile info and your match/message history into two separate JSON files rather than bundling everything into one like Tinder does.

If either required file is missing, RizzStats tells you exactly that instead of guessing, so read the error message rather than re-uploading the same zip a second time expecting a different result.

"Isn't a .json file"

RizzStats checks the content of what you upload, not the filename, so a file renamed to data (1).json after your third download attempt still works fine. What it won't accept is something that isn't JSON at all: the index.html viewer, a photo, or a .zip you've already partially unzipped into a folder. Point it at the zip itself or the raw JSON, not at anything Tinder or Hinge generated to make the export human-readable.

"Export contains no usage days or matches"

This one's a deliberate guard, not a bug. Both extractors will happily read a technically-valid JSON file that's essentially empty, so RizzStats explicitly checks for real activity, at least one usage day or match for Tinder, at least one match, like, or message for Hinge, before it processes anything. Seeing this error usually means one of two things: you exported a brand-new or barely-used account, or you downloaded the export before Tinder/Hinge had finished generating it and got a stub file. Request a fresh export and try again once you get the "ready" email, not before.

Size limits, if you're a heavy user

A single JSON file caps at 50 MB; a full zip (JSON plus any photos Tinder bundles in) caps at 250 MB. Almost nobody hits this from message history alone. If you do, it's worth knowing the JSON text itself is what's checked, so a zip stuffed with years of photos can still fail the file-size check even though your actual match and message data is tiny.

The part that should make this less stressful

Whatever you upload never leaves your device as a raw file. RizzStats parses the export in your browser and sends only the extracted, structured result to the server, your original export doesn't touch it. So there's no risk in experimenting: re-download, re-try, delete the file when you're done. Worst case is another error message, not a leak.