Sometimes it’s useful to be able to work with or debug data locally. Here’s a simple howto for exporting an Azure SQL database to your local SQL Server instance.

Requirements

A really quick and simple way to export the database from Azure to your local machine is to use Azure Data Studio with the Admin Pack for SQL Server extension installed.

You can install Azure Data Studio with winget:

winget install Microsoft.AzureDataStudio

Then go to Extensions. search for Admin Pack for SQL Server and install it.

Once installed, restart Azure Data Studio.

Exporting the database to a bacpac file

Connect to your Azure SQL Server instance using Azure Data Studio.

Right click the Databases section and then select Data-tier Application Wizard:

Proceed by selecting Export the schema and data from a database to the logical .bacpac file format [Export Bacpac]:

Click Next and select the server, database and the file location for the bacpac file:

Click Next to see the summary and then Export.

The export will start and you will see the progress in Tasks:

Importing the bacpac file to your local SQL Server instance

Run the following SQL query on your local SQL master database:

sp_configure 'contained database authentication', 1; 
GO  
RECONFIGURE;
GO

Then right click the Databases section and select Data-tier Application Wizard:

Proceed by selecting Create a database from a .bacpac file [Import Bacpac]:

Choose the .bacpac file, the server and the database name:

Review the summary and click Import:

An import task will start and once completed you will see the succeeded message in Tasks: