Import from Mailchimp or a file

You can bring in the people you already write to, from a CSV file or from the zip Mailchimp gives you when you export an audience. “Nothing is written until you confirm.”

“It is read here, in your browser. Only its rows reach your contacts: the file itself is never uploaded or kept.”

Before you start

• A newsletter or type. Everyone in the file can get a permission for one or more newsletters or types of email, so they must exist first. Read Types of email. You can also import them only as contacts, with no permission.
• Your level. Importing needs the holder or the level “Edit and send”.
• Up to 5,000 addresses. One import takes up to 5,000 different addresses. Split a bigger file and import the parts one by one.

1. File

1. In Contacts, open “People” and press “Import”.
2. Press “Choose a file”, or drop it on the page.

The file can be:

• a CSV file, with a first row naming each column, or without one. Commas or semicolons both work.
• Mailchimp’s zip, as Mailchimp gives it when you export an audience. Its subscribed, unsubscribed and cleaned files are read. Any other file in it is left out, and named.

2. Columns

“Tell us what each column holds. Only the email address is needed.”

• With Mailchimp’s zip: “Mailchimp’s columns are already matched. Check them, and change any you like.”
• “The first row is already a contact”: for a file with no row of column names on top. It is ticked by itself when the first row looks like a person rather than names of columns, and you can change it. While it is ticked, the columns are numbered and the first row is imported as a contact too.
• In the app, “Ask Tsurito to match them” lets Tsurito prepare the matching for you to check: “Tsurito gets the column names (or Column 1, 2… when the first row looks like data) and how many rows fill each, never the rows themselves.” When the names are not enough, it asks before it sees a few examples from columns whose short values repeat, such as a city. Read What it may see of your people.
• Choose “Leave it out” for a column you do not want.
• “Show every column” shows the columns already left out.
• “An entity, category or tag that does not exist yet is made from its name.”
• Tags in one cell can be separated by commas or semicolons.
• “When they opted in” and “When they confirmed” are kept as part of each permission’s proof.
• A language column may hold codes such as es or pt-BR, or names in any language, such as “Castellano”, “Català” or “English”. Each becomes its language; what is not recognised is shown in the review.

Press “Continue”.

3. What they may receive

“Tick one or more newsletters and types, each with its basis. Everyone in this file gets the same permissions, each with its own proof.”

1. Tick each newsletter or type they may receive.
2. For each, choose the “Basis”. An internal type offers only the bases your team declares.
3. For each, fill in “How and when they gave it”. It is needed for “Consent in a previous tool” and “Consent given elsewhere”.
4. Tick the line that names them all, for example “I declare that I have permission to write to these people for The Monthly and Notices.” It is required, and it is kept with the import and with each permission.
5. Press “Review the import”.

Or tick “Only as contacts, no newsletter or type”: “They join your contacts and receive nothing until a basis is declared for them.”

For a Mailchimp file, for example: “For example, they subscribed through our Mailchimp form between 2021 and 2025”.

4. Review

“Nothing has been written yet. This is what the import would do.”

When some languages were not recognised, “Languages not recognised” lists each value with how many contacts have it. Choose its language, or leave it, and it stays empty.

For each newsletter or type, it counts “Given the permission”, “Already had it” and “Skipped: they cannot receive it”.

Then it counts:

• “New contacts”;
• “Already in your contacts”;
• “Already in your contacts with these permissions”;
• “Unsubscribed or cleaned: kept only so they are never written to”;
• “Cannot receive what you chose: not added”;
• “Addresses that do not look valid: left out”;
• “Repeated in the file: taken once”;
• “Role addresses, such as info@ or admin@”;
• “Over your limit of contacts: left out”.

“For people already here, only their empty fields are filled. Nothing they have is replaced or removed.”

Before you confirm:

• Role addresses. “They usually reach a shared inbox, not one person. Left unticked, they are not imported.” Tick “Import role addresses too” to keep them.
• Your limit. The review shows your contacts and your limit. Those that would go over it are left out. “Nothing already there is erased.” If Email stops at what is included, the limit is what Email includes; choose “Carry on with extras” in Email’s “Status” first to bring them all in.
• “An old file”. When the newest opt-in in the file is more than 2 years old, the review says so. Make sure these people still expect to hear from you.

A large import from a young account may be looked at by the team. Nothing is blocked: the import goes on as usual.

Press “Confirm and import”.

While it imports

The import goes in parts. “Keep this page open. If it closes, come back and choose the same file: the import carries on where it stopped.”

• A part fails. Nothing of that part is written. Press “Carry on”.
• The page closed. Open “Import” again. It shows “An import was left halfway”. Press “Choose the same file” and choose it. Nobody is added twice.
• You want to stop. Press “End it here”, then “End the import”. “What came in stays in your contacts. The rest of the file is not added.”

When it ends, “The import is done” shows what it did. Nothing is sent to the people you import.

Unsubscribed and cleaned addresses

Mailchimp’s unsubscribed and cleaned addresses do not become contacts. They are kept only so they are never written to, and they do not count toward your limit.

People who had left a newsletter or type, or everything, are not given it back. Read Never written to again.

When a file is refused

• “This file is not a CSV or a zip. Choose a CSV file, or the zip of a Mailchimp export.”
• “This zip does not look like a Mailchimp export. Choose a CSV file, or the zip Mailchimp gives you.”
• “This file has no rows to import.”
• “This file is too big to read here. Split it into smaller files and import them one by one.”
• “Choose the column that holds the email address.” Match the email column in Columns.