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Importing issues from CSV (FREE)

Introduced in GitLab 11.7.

Issues can be imported to a project by uploading a CSV file with the columns title and description. Other columns are not imported. If you want to retain columns such as labels and milestones, consider the Move Issue feature.

The user uploading the CSV file is set as the author of the imported issues.

You must have at least the Developer role for a project to import issues.

Prepare for the import

  • Consider importing a test file containing only a few issues. There is no way to undo a large import without using the GitLab API.
  • Ensure your CSV file meets the file format requirements.

Import the file

To import issues:

  1. Navigate to a project's Issues list page.
  2. If existing issues are present, click the import icon at the top right, next to the Edit issues button.
  3. For a project without any issues, click the button labeled Import CSV in the middle of the page.
  4. Select the file and click the Import issues button.

The file is processed in the background and a notification email is sent to you once the import is complete.

CSV file format

When importing issues from a CSV file, it must be formatted in a certain way:

  • header row: CSV files must include the following headers: title and description. The case of the headers does not matter.
  • columns: Data from columns beyond title and description are not imported.
  • separators: The column separator is automatically detected from the header row. Supported separator characters are: commas (,), semicolons (;), and tabs (\t). The row separator can be either CRLF or LF.
  • double-quote character: The double-quote (") character is used to quote fields, enabling the use of the column separator within a field (see the third line in the sample CSV data below). To insert a double-quote (") within a quoted field, use two double-quote characters in succession ("").
  • data rows: After the header row, succeeding rows must follow the same column order. The issue title is required while the description is optional.

If you have special characters within a field, (such as \n or ,), wrap the characters in double quotes.

Sample CSV data:

title,description
My Issue Title,My Issue Description
Another Title,"A description, with a comma"
"One More Title","One More Description"

File size

The limit depends on the configuration value of Max Attachment Size for the GitLab instance.

For GitLab.com, it is set to 10 MB.