Skip to content

Importing issues from CSV

Introduced in GitLab 11.7.

Issues can be imported to a project by uploading a CSV file with the columns title and description, in that order.

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

Note: A permission level of Developer or higher is required 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 completed.

CSV file format

Header row

CSV files must contain a header row where the first column header is title and the second is description. If additional columns are present, they will be ignored.

Column separator

The column separator is automatically detected from the header row.

Supported separator characters are: commas (,), semicolons (;), and tabs (\t).

Row separator

Lines ending in either CRLF or LF are supported.

Quote character

The double-quote (") character is used to quote fields so you can use the column separator within a field. To insert a double-quote (") within a quoted field, use two double-quote characters in succession, i.e. "".

Data rows

After the header row, succeeding rows must follow the same column order. The issue title is required while the description is optional.

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.

Sample data

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