Relatable

Import contacts from a spreadsheet

Upload a CSV and map it yourself, or send it to the Relatable team and let them do it for you, free.

2 min readLast checked Aug 31, 2026
Recorded August 2026Relatable changes fast — what you see in the app may be a little ahead of this video. The written steps below stay current.

Bring in a whole contact list at once, whether it's an export from an old CRM, a list from an event, or a spreadsheet someone handed you.

Why it matters

When you're moving your network into Relatable, you don't want to add people one at a time. A CSV import gets dozens or hundreds of people in with a single upload, so you can start organizing them into spheres right away instead of typing everyone in by hand. And if the file itself is the problem, messy, inconsistent, exported from three different tools over the years, you don't have to be the one who cleans it up.

How it works

You upload a spreadsheet, and Relatable looks at your columns and proposes what each one probably means: which one is First Name, which is Email, which is a note. You confirm or fix the mapping, then it commits the import in the background while you keep working. Or you can skip the mapping entirely and hand the file straight to the Relatable team, free of charge, who import it for you and email you when it's done. It exists because a messy contact spreadsheet is genuinely a pain to untangle, and you shouldn't have to be the one doing it.

How to use it

  1. On the web: go to the Database page, open the Add menu, and choose Import a spreadsheet.
  2. Pick how you want it handled. Choose Upload a CSV to map it yourself, or We'll Import it For You to send the file straight to the Relatable team instead, at no cost. You can add a note about anything unusual in the file before you send it.
  3. If you're mapping it yourself: Relatable shows you the first rows of your file along with a proposed column mapping. Review each one, and adjust anything that's wrong.
  4. Confirm and commit: once the mapping looks right, start the import. It runs in the background, and you'll get an email when it's done.
  5. If you sent it to the team: sit tight. They'll email you once your contacts are in.

Good to know

  • Sending your file to the team is free for anyone on Relatable. Use it any time, not just when a file feels unusually messy.
  • The proposed mapping is a starting point, not a final answer. Check it, especially on fields you weren't expecting Relatable to guess correctly.
  • Fields that can hold more than one value, like emails, phones, and addresses, can pull from more than one column.
  • If a row's email or phone matches someone already in your network, Relatable connects it to that existing contact rather than creating a duplicate.
  • Your column mapping is remembered for a little while if you step away mid-import and come back.

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