In this article, we'll go over the most commonly reported post-import issues, along with explanations to help you determine whether you may be experiencing a delay or an intended behavior:

NOTE: In this guide, we'll cover post-import issues only, which occur after your subscriber import is complete. If you're having trouble importing your subscribers in the first place, please refer to these steps instead!

It can take a few minutes for your subscribers to show up in your account after you import them, especially if your CSV contained a large number of subscribers.

But we won't leave you guessing; you'll receive an email once your import is complete!

When we import your data to ConvertKit, we will replace any existing data we have on your subscribers with the data you provide in your import file. This includes replacing existing subscriber data we find with blank values if your import file contains blank fields.

For example, let's say you have stored the following information on a subscriber in ConvertKit:

You then import a file containing this data on the same subscriber:

The subscriber's data in ConvertKit will become:

If you mistakenly overwrote existing subscriber data, you can undo the changes by importing the original version of your subscriber data (if you still have a copy of it).

Splitting your subscriber import work into multiple imports can help you avoid overwriting existing subscriber data when importing new subscriber data into ConvertKit. Learn more about the process of splitting imports here.

Our reports operate on a cache and refresh cycle. Even if your import is complete, it can still take a few minutes longer for the reporting to catch up.

That said, if a significant amount of time has passed (more than an hour), please proceed to the next sections.

If any of the subscribers you imported were already in your account, re-importing them will not move them to the top of your overall subscriber list.

This is because that list is sorted by original subscription date, and the date they originally subscribed to your list remains unchanged even if you import them again at a later date.

If you suspect an imported subscriber is missing, you can more accurately verify whether this is the case by searching for their email address from the sidebar.

There are three likely explanations for this, and all are actually positive effects of ConvertKit being a subscriber-centric platform.

In all of the following scenarios, the bottom line is this: ConvertKit will never add a subscriber to your list more than once!

If your import includes subscribers that were already on your list prior to the import, your subscriber count may not increase by as much as you were expecting—but this is intentional.

If there's a subscriber contained in your import file that's already on your list, we won't add them to your list again. Instead, we'll just add whatever it is that you're importing them into (such as a tag) to their existing profile.

Here's an example: Let's say you have 100 subscribers on your list, and you're importing a CSV with 100 additional subscribers. However, 25 of the email addresses contained in your CSV file are already on your list.

In this case, once the import is complete, your subscriber count will only increase to 175—not the 200 you may have been initially expecting. This is because we automatically de-duplicate those 25 subscribers for you.

Each subscriber is counted and imported only once.

Even if you're 100% sure that your CSV contains subscribers that are not already on your list, if there are still some are duplicates within the CSV, those duplicates will also be counted and imported only once.

Here's an example: say you have 100 subscribers on your list, and you're importing a CSV with 100 additional subscribers. However, 10 of the email addresses in your CSV are repeated twice. As a result, there are actually only 90 unique email addresses contained in your CSV.

In this case, once the import is complete, your subscriber count will increase to only 190—not the 200 you may have been initially expecting.

If someone previously unsubscribed from your list and then are subsequently included in an import, we will not re-activate them on your list.

We'll remember that they previously unsubscribed, and their status on your list will remain as 'Cancelled' (and as a result, they won't be included in your confirmed subscriber total).

Here's an example: say you have 100 subscribers on your list, and you're importing a CSV with 100 additional subscribers. However, 5 of the email addresses in your CSV belong to people who have unsubscribed from your emails in the past.

In this case, once the import is complete, your subscriber count will increase to only 195—not the 200 you may have been initially expecting. This is because we will not re-activate those 5 subscribers who previously unsubscribed from your emails.

☝️ NOTE: If someone unsubscribed from your list by accident and/or you have their permission to reactivate them, please reach out to us and we can take care of that for you.

If none of these explain your issue, please reach out to us with a description of the issue you're experiencing, and attach the CSV file you imported. One of our Product Specialists will help troubleshoot further!