diff --git a/src/sparseml/yolov8/trainers.py b/src/sparseml/yolov8/trainers.py
index cada1792fac..46398bcfb94 100644
--- a/src/sparseml/yolov8/trainers.py
+++ b/src/sparseml/yolov8/trainers.py
@@ -754,12 +754,26 @@ def export(self, **kwargs):
         deployment_folder = exporter.create_deployment_folder(onnx_model_name=name)
         if args["export_samples"]:
             trainer_config = get_cfg(cfg=DEFAULT_SPARSEML_CONFIG_PATH)
+            # First check if the yaml exists locally
+            if os.path.exists(args["data"]):
+                trainer_config.data = args["data"]
+            else:
+                # If it does not exist, may be a uralytics provided yaml. Try
+                # downloading and updating path to dataset_path
+                # Does this case actually happen? I.e. is args["data"] ever not a
+                # checkpointed local yaml path?
+                try:
+                    if args["dataset_path"] is not None:
+                        args["data"] = data_from_dataset_path(
+                            args["data"], args["dataset_path"]
+                        )
+                        trainer_config.data = args["data"]
+                except ValueError:
+                    LOGGER.info(
+                        f"yaml in {args['data']} could not be found. "
+                        "Using default config"
+                    )
 
-            if args["dataset_path"] is not None:
-                args["data"] = data_from_dataset_path(
-                    args["data"], args["dataset_path"]
-                )
-            trainer_config.data = args["data"]
             trainer_config.imgsz = args["imgsz"]
             trainer = DetectionTrainer(trainer_config)
             # inconsistency in name between