Buttondown Documentation
Moving your data—much like moving IRL—can be incredibly stressful. Buttondown is here to lighten the load by seamlessly importing your subscribers, tags, metadata, archives, and more.
Before we get to work, it’s a good idea to make sure that your Buttondown account is fully set up. Let’s start by checking the following:
Once your account is ready to go, it’s important to make sure that your subscribers are expecting your move to Buttondown. Here are a few quick questions to ask yourself before we proceed:
If Buttondown recognizes the columns in your CSV because it's from one of our common import sources (like Substack or Mailchimp), it will automatically map them to the appropriate fields!
If not, you'll be prompted to map them yourself. Buttondown will prompt you to choose which columns correspond to certain pieces of data, allowing you to bring in subscribers while keeping their existing tags, join dates, and metadata.
Now that you and your subscribers are prepared for the move to Buttondown, you’re in a great place to kick off the data import process.
Let’s make sure that your data is packaged up nicely before you move it over to Buttondown. The best way to do this is by formatting your data in a CSV file. What’s a CSV file, you may ask? As a quick refresher, CSV files consist of “comma-separated values.” Here’s an example of what a CSV file might look like both as a table and as a raw file.
Date | Interests | Name | Location | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
icarus@buttondown.email | 1/1/23 | Tech | Icarus | Crete | Flew too high |
odysseus@buttondown.email | 1/2/23 | "Sports, Politics" | Odysseus | Ithaca | Stuck at sea |
helen@buttondown.email | 1/3/23 | "World News, Politics" | Helen | Troy | Face that launched a thousand ships |
If you’re migrating to Buttondown from another email service like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, or Substack, then you’ll most likely be exporting your subscriber data as a CSV file. Using that CSV file, Buttondown can automatically import the following values for each of your subscribers:
Other than your subscriber’s email, all the above values are completely optional, and don’t have to be included in your CSV file. Note that you can also add details like tags, metadata, and notes to subscribers after they’ve been imported to Buttondown.
When moving large quantities of data, organizing that data is half the battle. Here are a few of our go-to tips for formatting your CSV file:
Sports
, Politics
”Name
and Location
.Once you're satisfied with the contents of your CSV file, go ahead an export it from Google Sheets, Excel, or your preferred app.
With your formatted CSV file at the ready, it’s time for us to head on over to the “Subscribers" tab of your Buttondown dashboard. From there, click “Import,” drag your CSV file over to the ensuing pop-up window, and follow along with the pop-up prompts. These prompts will ask you to pick the values you’d like to assign as tags, metadata, notes, and more.
It can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours for Buttondown to import all of your data, depending on the number of new subscribers you’re adding.
In some cases, if you’re importing a large quantity of new subscribers, we may temporarily deactivate your account to make sure your subscriber emails are all up to code. If you need to step away, no worries! We’ll send you an email to confirm that your import is complete.
If you’re uploading a large quantity of subscribers, it may take a few hours to process.
Want to check up on your subscriber data? There are a couple places you can look, including the “Subscribers” tab of your Buttondown dashboard. From here, you can customize your subscriber list view to include tags, metadata, and other useful information by clicking the “+” button in the upper right hand corner. You can also click any given subscriber’s email address in order to view your notes or to make any manual edits to your data for that subscriber.
You can also try the “Tags” tab of the Buttondown dashboard. Here, you’ll have the option to edit each tag, view the subscribers grouped by each tag, and more.
No email left behind! Start by exporting your archives as a ZIP file from your previous email service. Every email service goes about data exports in a slightly different way; with this in mind, we recommend checking out Buttondown’s migration guide for your previous email service.
All of our migration guides can be found in the main menu to your left.
Once you have your ZIP file, head on over to the “Emails” tab of your Buttondown dashboard. From there, click the “Import” button, select the email service that you’re migrating your emails from, and drop your ZIP file over the “Choose a ZIP” button.
If you’re having trouble uploading your ZIP file, try refreshing your page and clicking the “Choose a Zip” button before dragging and dropping your ZIP file.
You’ve done it! After a moment or two, your archives should appear in the “Emails” tab of your Buttondown dashboard.
Now that you’ve successfully imported your data, there’s no better way to celebrate than by crafting the first edition of your brand new newsletter. Our dedicated guide will lead you through the process of uploading images, adding custom links, leveraging tags, completing mail merges, and more.
The more the merrier! Learn how to grow your newsletter’s following by sharing your Buttondown URL, embedding an HTML form, or embedding an iFrame.