diff --git a/tools/zulip-export/zulip-export b/tools/zulip-export/zulip-export
index 5249ec16d1..575a913ccb 100755
--- a/tools/zulip-export/zulip-export
+++ b/tools/zulip-export/zulip-export
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 
 import sys
 import os
-import optparse
+import argparse
 import time
 import json
 usage = """Export all messages on a given stream to a JSON dump.
@@ -39,10 +39,9 @@ This script requires the Zulip API bindings to be installed."""
 sys.path.append(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), '../../api'))
 import zulip
 
-parser = optparse.OptionParser(usage=usage)
-parser.add_option_group(zulip.generate_option_group(parser))
-parser.add_option('--stream', default='')
-(options, args) = parser.parse_args()
+parser = zulip.add_default_arguments(argparse.ArgumentParser(usage=usage))
+parser.add_argument('--stream', default='', action="store")
+options = parser.parse_args()
 
 client = zulip.init_from_options(options)