Importing contacts
Bring in any client list: CSV, Excel or phone contacts.
Upload your client list as it is. We find the email addresses, phone numbers and names for you and show a preview before anything is saved.
Supported files
- CSV or text separated by commas, semicolons, tabs or pipes, in any common encoding.
- Excel:
.xlsxand older.xls. We use the sheet with the most data. - Phone contacts (
.vcf) exported from Android, iPhone, Google Contacts or Outlook.
Up to 50,000 contacts and 10 MB per file. Every file is scanned for viruses and harmful content before it's read.
Import step by step
- Open the import page: Email marketing › Contacts › Import from file or SMS › Contacts › Import from file.
- Drop your file on the page, or click to choose it.
- Check what we found. You see how many email addresses and valid phone numbers were found, with the detected columns highlighted in the preview.
- Change anything that's wrong (which columns hold emails, phones, names or the company) and press Update preview. Tick extra columns, like city or amount, to keep them for personalising messages.
- Choose where they go: an email list and tags, or an SMS group (new or existing).
- Optionally save both: tick “Also add the phone numbers to my SMS contacts” (or the emails to Email contacts) to import both from the same file.
- Import. A summary shows how many were added and updated, duplicates merged, and rows without an email or number.
What's detected automatically
| Messy data | What happens |
|---|---|
| Title rows above the table | The real heading row is found. |
| Headings like “E-mail Address”, “Client Email”, “Phone No.”, “GSM”, “WhatsApp” | Recognised by name and by what's in the column. |
| No headings at all | Columns are numbered and detected from their contents. |
0803 123 4567 / 0805… or a@x.com; b@y.com | Every number or email in the cell is found. |
0803…, 803…, 234803…, Excel numbers like 2348031234567.0 | Converted to +234803… using your default country. |
| One “Full name” column | Split into first and last name. |
Existing contacts and opt-outs
Contacts already in your account are updated (names filled in, extra columns merged), never duplicated. People who unsubscribed from email or replied STOP to SMS stay excluded even if they're in the file again.
Quick sends without importing
On the SMS and email send pages, Load numbers/emails from a file fills the recipient box from a file without saving anyone as a contact, which is handy for a one-off message.
Email imports ask you to confirm that everyone in the file agreed to receive your emails.
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