---
title: Importing contacts
related:
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts.md
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation.md
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/email-marketing.md
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

You can import contacts into Xperience from [Comma-separated values (CSV)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values) files.Contact import comes in handy when you need to use contacts from 3rd party systems in Xperience. Typically, you will be able to export contacts to CSV files directly from your CRM. You can also export CSV files from Excel spreadsheets. After importing contacts and adding them to a contact group, you can [send them an email](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/email-marketing.md). The **Kentico Xperience Enterprise** edition also allows you to start a [marketing automation process](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation.md) or use other [On-line marketing](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features.md) functionality.

> **Info:** **Limitations and requirements**
>
> Please take into account the following requirements and limitations of the import functionality:
>
> - Only CSV files can be used for import.
> - The input CSV file has to be encoded in UTF-8.
> - The first row of the input file must contain a header with the names of the columns.
> - Only text contact fields are supported. Importing of birthday, gender, country and other such fields is not supported.
> - See an example [CSV file](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/13/importing-contacts/ExampleCSV.zip).
> - The contact import uses HTML 5 File API functionality, which is supported by the majority of modern browsers.

## Importing contacts

Note: The import process overwrites existing contact values.

1. Open the **Contact management** application on the **Contacts** tab.
2. Click the **Import contacts** button.
3. Click the **Select a file** button.
4. Select the CSV from which you want to import contacts.
5. Segment the imported contacts into a contact group by selecting from the following:

   - _Create a new contact group_
   - _Import contacts into an existing contact group_
   - _Do not segment imported contacts_
6. Map the columns from your file to Xperience contact fieldsby specifying which contact fields represent the specific values in the file:
   - Each value can be represented by one field.
   - You always need to map the Email value. Xperience uses email addresses to identify unique contacts.
   - Labels in gray show names of the columns from the input CSV files (First Name, Last Name and Email). Values under the column names show sample values in each column. The drop-down list under each column allows you to specify which of the contact's fields will be filled with values from this column.

     ![Mapping contact values during import](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/13/importing-contacts/import_mapping.png "Mapping contact values during import")
7. Click the **Import contacts** button.
   - The import process starts. Please **don't leave the page until the** **Import finished** status is shown.
   - Once the process is finished, you can see a confirmation screen showing the result of the import.

See how you can now [work with the contacts](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts.md) you just imported.

> **Info:** After the import, the system automatically:
>
> - Recalculates all the affected [Personas](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/personas.md), [Contact groups](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/segmenting-contacts-into-contact-groups.md), and [Scores](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/scoring-contacts.md) to keep them up-to-date.
> - Triggers [Marketing automation](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation.md) processes that use the 'Contact created' and 'Contact changed' triggers for newly created and updated contacts.

## Import finished screen description

Once the import finishes, a summary screen is displayed showing import results.

![Import finished screen](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/13/importing-contacts/import_result.png "Import finished screen")

Each contact from the input file can end up in one of the following categories:

- **Imported** – the number of contacts successfully created in the system.
- **Duplicates found and successfully updated** – the number of contacts from the input file that already existed in the Xperience database and were successfully updated. Also contains entries that were in the CSV file more than once.
- **Not imported contacts** – the number of contacts that weren't created or updated due to an error. You can download a .CSV file containing the contacts that haven't been imported. The file contains an explanation of how you can remedy the situation next to each entry. Afterwards, you can import the file with the remaining contacts.