Troubleshooting Contact Imports

First of all, if you're having trouble importing contacts into your subscribers area, don’t panic! We promise, everything will be ok. There are a few common reasons that your upload isn’t going as planned, and we'll walk through them, here.

1. Your file really needs to be in one of the following file formats for best outcomes:
   
   • .csv
   • .txt
   • .xls or .xlsx
   • .vcf (vCard)
   If your file is anything else, please re-save the file as one of those, and try it again. Saving your spreadsheet as a CSV is the best way to troubleshoot file format issues.
2. Make sure you have headers in your file. The first row of your spreadsheet, or the first line of your text MUST be a header row. For example, your very first row or line should look something like this:

   

   or this:

   Email, Name, Company
   support@secureserver.net, Sir Horton Hootendoodle, Email Messaging Division

   or like this:

   Email,First Name,Last Name,Company
   support@secureserver.net,Horton,Hootendoodle,(your domain name here with .com [or any valid .tld extension], no spaces, no parentheses)
3. When using CSV or TXT files, the spacing of the headers must match the spacing of the data. If you used a single tab space between your data, there should be a single tab space between your headers. Likewise, if you have no space between your header items, then there should be no space between your data items.
4. Make sure your headers are appropriately named. You have a lot of flexibility in the actual title you put in the header row, since Email Marketing is good at interpreting your intentions. But if you're having trouble with an import, change your column headers to match any of the following exactly, and try it again:
   
   • email
   • name
   • firstname
   • lastname
5. Your headers should all be a single word, if you're having any trouble importing your contacts. Use an underscore between words, if you have to, but avoid spaces in your headers.
6. Don't use odd characters in your headers. No slashes, or dashes, or hashes, etc.
7. Look for odd characters in the emails, or any email addresses that are not formatted correctly, like this: ---@---.---
   Any email not formatted with an @ and a period will not import into your subscribers.
8. Scan your file for any hard returns, or blank rows. Those can create problems and partial imports, if present.
9. Lastly, make sure your file is fully uploaded! You can check the progress of your imports, using the Import history button in your subscribers area. Scroll down the page to the bottom of your lists, on the left. You'll see the Import History button there, underneath all your subscriber lists. When the file has finished uploading successfully, it will show a green dot and Succeeded. If the dot is grey, and it says Processing, just give it a little bit of time to finish.

More info

• Add contacts to the All subscribers list
• Getting a CSV File from Excel or Numbers
• Viewing and editing subscriber details