How to import email addresses for Mailings

Update: 02 February 2026 for Release 225


Importing mailing list

In the Dashboard, go to Mailings > Mailing list import

This module imports email addresses and optional other personal data from a .csv file and adds these records to a specific mailing list.

This module ensures that no duplicates email addresses will arise; if the email address already exist, the data will be updated.

 

Step 1: Creating the CSV file

A list of email addresses must be imported as a .csv file.

CSV stands for comma separated values. With a program such as Excel or OpenOffice's Calc it is very easy to create a .csv file.

Create a spreadsheet and name the first row email. (put the name in the first row of the column). This name will be used by the importer to find the column that contains the email addresses.

You can optionally add more columns for importing extra visitor data. They each need to have a specific name in order for the importer to recognise the type of data. The full set of possible columns is:

  • email (required column)
  • gender (optional column)
  • first name (optional column)
  • surname prefix (optional column)
  • last name (optional column)

The order of the columns is not important, the importer only looks at the column names.

You can now add the following data in each of the columns

  • email
    • email address
  • gender
    • man / vrouw / onbekend are still supported and male / female as well (any other value will be mapped to "unknown", which we typically present as "other" or "x")
  • first name
    • First name
  • surname prefix
    • prefix, like “de” or “van de”
  • last name
    • Last name or family name
 

Go to 'Save as ...', and choose CSV (Comma Separated Values) (* .csv) as the file type.

🚧
Take note! On a Mac, choose file type "list separators (for Windows)"
  • Choose a name without spaces, capital letters or special characters.
  • File must be encoded using UTF-8.
  • The columns must be separated with a comma or semicolon, and the columns can only be delimited with double quotes. (Delimit is optional and only used when comma’s or semicolons can be within the data itself)
 
Semicolon seperator
Semicolon seperator
Comma separator
Comma separator
Comma separator with double quotes delimitation
Comma separator with double quotes delimitation
 
 

Step 2: Import the CSV file

 
Notion image
 
 
  • Choose and upload the file you just created.
  • Select an existing Mailing List to import the data to. If you want to upload to a new mailing list, first create a mailing list in the Mailing List module.
  • Select the separator type of the .csv file. Rows can be separated by semi colon (;) or comma (,).
 

Data processing logic

  • If a value in the csv file is empty it will never overwrite existing information
  • All data is forced to UTF-8 - this might result in ? or tofu if there are weird whitespace characters in the file but the import will succeed
  • Email addresses are stripped of any non-ASCII characters and whitespace so that import should succeed even with weird invisible characters and tofu

GDPR & privacy

When importing new e-mail addresses, it is important to take the GDPR into consideration. You cannot use e-mail addresses in mailings without consent. If consent was already given, consider importing consent data too via our Opt-in import feature.

 

 

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