Help · Settings

Running the import

Import everything on Settings → Imports → Klaviyo imports your whole account in one press. This chapter walks through the steps it runs, and what the screen tells you while it works.

Import everything, in one press

Import everything imports your whole Klaviyo account in one press: eight steps, each waiting for the one before and starting on its own. Each step keeps its own report, and you can close the page while it runs.

Import everything is the button most people want, and under it is the whole of what will happen: a numbered list of the eight steps, in the order they run. The heading over the list says the same thing in one sentence:

One press imports your whole account, in the order below. Each step waits for the one before it and starts on its own, and each one keeps a report. You can close this page — it keeps going.

You do not have to come back and press anything else. Each step waits its turn, starts when the one in front of it has finished, and each step gets its own report — so you still get a separate list to read for your segments, your templates, your images and your automations.

The list is the order, and every row says why it comes where it does:

1. Do not email — everyone you must never email; first, so nothing imported later can put anyone back on your list
2. Unsubscribes — everyone who unsubscribed; next, for the same reason
3. Profiles and consent — your people, and what Klaviyo recorded about their consent
4. Lists — your lists, and who is on them; after your people, because a list is the people on it
5. Profile event history — everything Klaviyo recorded about each person, not only the emails; after your people, because every event belongs to somebody. This is the long one. If Klaviyo recorded that somebody marked one of your emails as spam, that person goes into Do not email and stays there for good, whatever else Klaviyo or your store says about them
6. Segments — after your lists and your history, because a segment's rule can name either
7. Templates — your designs, with every image copied into your own images and media
8. Images — the rest of your Klaviyo image library, except the images you hid there, copied into your images and media
9. Automations — last, because an automation can name a segment and a template

Each name in bold is the word the row wears on the screen, so you can read the two side by side.

That ordering is the most important thing on this page. By the time a profile is written, every restriction Klaviyo holds about that person is already stored here — so no later row can quietly put somebody back on your list. It is not a check that has to be right; it is an order that makes the mistake impossible.

What each row tells you

One wording per fact, and never two for the same one. Each row carries a small badge with its state in one word, and anything more than the state — why it stopped, why it is waiting, when it comes back — is written underneath it:

And in the count beside the badge:

The number beside a row is what that step actually imported, with the unit under it. A count of 0 is a real answer — we read Klaviyo and found nobody. Not counted yet is a different answer, and the list keeps them apart.

Lists is the one row with two numbers, because it imports two things. The figure is a count of your lists. Under it, the row says how many people are on them — 50,772 people on them, counted once per list — and "once per list" is the honest part: somebody on three of your lists fills three of those places.

Your segments, templates and automations rows carry two numbers when anything could not be imported. The figure is what arrived, with imported under it, and below that — in red, with a mark — how many did not: 10 imported, then 33 not imported. The row then says it in a sentence: 33 of 43 segments were not imported. The import report names each one and why. A step where everything arrived shows one number and no second line, as it always has.

See the import report appears on a row once that step has finished. A row still waiting has no report, because nothing has happened yet — and neither does a row that stopped, because the report covers the run and has no account of a part that did not finish. What went wrong is on the banner instead.

Watching the one that is working

The row that is working is raised, carries a small mark inside its Importing now badge, and says how far it has come and when we last looked — 14,870 profiles so far · as of 4:12 PM.

The screen asks again every few seconds, so the time moves even during the long stretches where the number does not; that is how you can tell it is still going rather than stuck. A row that has been picked up but has not finished its first batch says so beside the same clock, because a number nobody has taken yet is not a zero:

Nothing counted yet · as of 4:12 PM

Nothing on this screen is a guess except the hours on the email-history row below. The number is what has actually arrived.

The long one

Your profile event history is the part that takes hours rather than minutes — days, on an account with millions of events behind it — and its row says so while it runs: how far back your history in Klaviyo reaches, how far the import has come, and roughly how much longer it will take at the pace it is actually moving.

The bar measures how much of your history is covered, not how many rows have arrived — events are much denser in recent years than in old ones, so "44% of your history" is not "44% of the rows". The dates under it are the fact; the hours are a courtesy, and until we have measured the pace for a couple of minutes the row says so rather than guessing:

Working out how long this will take.

The time we give you is deliberately generous. Because your recent years are so much busier than your early ones, counting the calendar would tell you a cheerful number and then leave you waiting. So we measure how fast rows are actually arriving and how busy the years we have just walked through were, project the rest from that, and then double it and round up. You should finish sooner than we said. The number also never climbs: once we have given you a figure, it only ever comes down.

You can close the page. It keeps going.

You do not have to watch it

An import keeps going whether or not the page is open. We email you when it finishes, or if it needs you.

While an import is running, the first thing on the screen is its progress — the step that is running, how far it has got, and when it is expected to finish — and under it one sentence that is the whole truth:

It keeps going whether or not this page is open — close it, leave the app or
sign out, and come back whenever you like.

We email you when it finishes, or if it needs you, and the note says so:

We email you when it is done, or if it needs you.

The email that says it is done names what was imported, kind by kind — for example, It imported 1,204 profiles, 12 lists and 30 templates. — with a link to the import's report. An import that found nothing new sends no email.

We wait for the previews. After the last step, every template we imported still needs a preview drawn for its card, and until those are done the progress block says so:

Almost done — drawing previews of 354 templates.

That is the only reason an import can sit at 100% for a few more minutes. The email comes after, so that when you open Templates everything is there to look at.

The message goes to whoever pressed Import, or to your store's owner if we cannot tell. It carries the totals, and its link brings you back to Settings → Imports → Klaviyo — the same screen you started from, opened where you work. If a step stops and needs you, you get a message saying that instead, and it lands on that same screen — so you never have to keep checking to find out either way.

The import does not run in your browser. Closing the tab, signing out, or losing your connection changes nothing about it. Come back to Settings → Imports → Klaviyo whenever you like and the list will tell you where it got to.

Skipping a step

Segments, templates and automations each have a quiet Skip this one while they are waiting their turn. It is there for the twelve automations you know you do not want: you decline that step instead of waiting for it.

A skip does not stop anything behind it. The steps after it carry on in order, exactly as if the skipped one had finished. The row then says Skipped by you and offers Import, so you can change your mind whenever you like.

Only a skipped step can be started again on its own. The five that carry your people are not individually runnable — Import everything is theirs — which is why only rows 6, 7 and 8 offer anything.

When a step waits

When Klaviyo does not answer, the step's badge says Paused and it tries again by itself, for about a day. Nothing is lost while it waits, and there is nothing for you to do.

The line under the badge names why and the time it will try again — a minute at first, then longer if Klaviyo stays quiet. It picks itself back up and carries on from the page it had reached.

When a step stops

A step stops only after hours of trying by itself, and a banner at the top of the screen then says what happened. Everything imported so far is kept, and Resume picks up exactly where it stopped.

A banner at the top of the screen says so, and says what happened. It names the part that stopped, what went wrong, how much is already yours, and what the one button does:

Your Profile event history import stopped.

It stopped after requests to Klaviyo timed out 5 times in a row. Everything imported so far is kept — 2,613,135 events. Resume it and it picks up exactly where it stopped — nothing is imported twice.

A step tries by itself for hours before it stops. When a request fails we wait and try again — a minute, then five, then longer each time, up to half a day in all. While that is happening the row says Paused, with Klaviyo is not answering under it, and tells you when it comes back, and nothing is asked of you: an unreliable afternoon at somebody else's service is not something you should have to sit and watch. A step stops and asks for you only once all of that waiting has been used up.

When it does, the reason is one of four — requests timed out, we could not reach Klaviyo, Klaviyo answered with an error, or something else went wrong — and the banner says which.

In the list, the step itself says Stopped, wears a tint of its own, and its step number becomes a warning. The line under it opens with the number of failed requests. The steps behind it say Stopped too, and each names what it is waiting on, so nothing is left half-imported quietly.

Stopped after 5 failed requests.
Everything already imported stays. It resumes where it stopped — nothing is imported twice.

Resume is the owner’s, along with Import everything, the skips and Disconnect. The held-profile controls under the list are your managers’ too. Everyone else sees the same banner and the same stopped row, and they say so where the button would be:

Everything already imported stays. Your store’s owner can resume it, and it picks up where it stopped.

Import everything waits while something is stopped. It starts a fresh import from the beginning, which is not what you want when a part of one is sitting a page short of where it got to — so while a step is stopped that button is off, and says why:

Resume the stopped import first.

Resuming costs nothing and takes nothing back. It picks the step up at the exact page it stopped on — a long email-history import does not start again from your oldest year — and then runs the ones that were canceled behind it, in the same order. Anything that had already finished is left alone, and a step you skipped stays skipped. The report you were reading is the one that carries on.