NOTE: This guide covers troubleshooting steps for pre-import issues, which prevent the subscribers from being added to your account in the first place.
If you're experiencing post-import issues, such as a reporting discrepancy, check out this guide instead.
Most import and/or upload errors encountered when importing a CSV file of your subscribers can be resolved by following one or more of these steps:
Verify the import file is a CSV
Your subscriber import's filetype must be .csv. If its filetype is .txt (regular text file), .xlsx (Excel file), or anything else, our importer won't be able to parse it.
CSVs are commonly used for data exports. So, if you're migrating your subscriber list from another email platform, that email platform should be able to export your list as a CSV.
If you need to convert your import file to CSV format, we recommend opening it in a spreadsheet application like Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. Any of these will then let you export the file as a CSV.
Ensure each subscriber has an email address
Check that each subscriber in your CSV has an email address. If our importer encounters a subscriber without an email address, it will stop importing subscribers from that subscriber onward.
In this CSV, for example, the email address for the first subscriber, Jughead, is missing:
This will cause the entire import to fail as the importer stops importing from the first subscriber onward. You'll also see this error message: "CSV does not appear to contain email address."
On the other hand, let's say the email address for the third subscriber, Veronica, is missing instead:
In this case, the importer will import the first two subscribers successfully, but fail to import the rest of the subscriber list (i.e., from Veronica onward).
If your CSV has subscribers with missing email addresses, fill out their email addresses or remove these subscribers from your CSV before importing it.
Add header rows
In many cases, the top row of a column will not contain data itself, but rather a label indicating the type of data the column contains.
Note the "First name" and "Email address" header rows at the top of this sample CSV, for example:
If your CSV file doesn't already contain header rows, try adding them and see if that helps with the import. The header rows' names should correspond with the names of your subscriber fields in Kit, such as "First name" and "Email address."
(If the column contains Tags, use "Tags" as the heading.)
Remove unnecessary columns
Remove all columns from your CSV other than those that contain data you want to import into Kit.
This is because:
Having too many columns' worth of information that you don't intend to import can disrupt the import
If you upload columns of subscriber data for which you already had existing data in Kit, we will replace such existing data with the new data in your CSV file. This can lead to the accidental overwriting or deletion of subscriber data in Kit you hadn't wanted to change.
For example, if you want to import only your subscribers' first names and email addresses, delete all the columns in your CSV other than the two that contain first names and email addresses.
Check for nonstandard characters
Our importer may have difficulty importing nonstandard characters like ç, θ, or Þ. Check your CSV for these types of characters—or even glitched characters like ▯ that don't display correctly in any alphabet.
If you find any nonstandard or glitched characters, remove or replace them, and then try your import again.
Still having pre-import trouble?
If none of the above steps solved your import issue, please reach out to us with a description of the issue you're experiencing, and attach the CSV file you're trying to import. One of our product specialists will troubleshoot further.