Importing Contacts

Importing Contacts

Importing contacts allows you to add entire groups of contacts to our platform using a simple XLS (MS Excel) spreadsheet.





Note that you must have a channel connected to your account to import contacts. To import contacts, simply import an XLS spreadsheet containing:

Address columns corresponding to the addresses each contact may contain (a Phone column containing each contact's phone number in E164 format; and/or a Telegram column containing each contact's Telegram identifier; and/or an Email column containing each contact's email address). Once imported, our platform will display your contacts' phone numbers without the country code prefix.


A Name column that contains the first and last name of each contact.


(Conditional) A UUID column containing the universally unique identifier for each contact you import. This column may replace the Name column, and is necessary when importing a spreadsheet with the intention of adding a new address or address type to your contacts.


(Optional) A Language column representing each contacts' preferred language that contains the ISO 639-3 standardized nomenclature to classify the languages you're including.


(Optional) Any number of additional columns corresponding with custom attributes (contact fields) containing contact field values. Note that column names are limited to 36 characters, don't support special characters, and may not start with a number.


Note that when importing a date value into the platform without a time value, we will assign the date a time value of 00:00 (12 AM):





Additionally, when manually adding only a date value to a contact field, we will replace the corresponding time value with the time at which you updated the field.


Group membership is determined in the contacts import page and not in your Excel file. Read on to see how it works!

To Import Contacts

Navigate to the contacts tab.

Click the "Import Contacts" button at the top left of the page.



Download and edit the template we provide (or choose a your own file) and upload it using the "Choose File" button.

Be sure that you only use supported fields for your Column Headers in your spreadsheet. For example, if you want to add a registration date, use the Column Header Field:Registration_Date. You must separate spaces with underscores only!

Additionally, please check that your telephone numbers _include country codes_. We support users globally, so we need to know where your contacts are located.





After clicking the "Preview" button, you'll see the option to import headers from your file. In our sample, we have 3 headers: a telephone number, name, and field called Team. Additionally, we will choose group membership.

You have the option of creating a new group and giving it a name or adding the contacts to an existing group in your workspace. If you leave the group membership box unchecked, the contacts will not be added to any group.



That's it! After importing, you'll see the number of new contacts created or updated and any group memberships.

Importing Address Types

Contacts can be imported with multiple address types, but only one address for each type:




Contact addresses can be added via an import, so long as the UUID column contains the UUID(s) of the contact(s). Contact UUIDs can be obtained by exporting your contacts.

Exporting Contacts

Contact exports will contain your contacts' UUIDs, Names, Addresses, and Custom Contact Fields. To export your contacts, simply navigate to the contact tab and select the "Export" option from the ☰ menu icon:

Removing Duplicates

Duplicate contacts cannot be imported into TextIt, so you'll first need to find and remove them from your Excel document. Take a look at this article to see how.

Updated on: 31/01/2024