Format Guidelines for Your Import File
Certain audience field types, like addresses and phone numbers, require a specific format. Learn about field types, and how to format them to work with Mailchimp.
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About Tab-Delimited File Tips
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A tab-delimited file is a text file that's set up with a tab separating each column of text. Mailchimp accepts these types of files for contact imports, and helps you map tabbed columns to a field in your audience.
Note
Before you export your file from a database application, take a look at their FAQs or support page for instructions on how to save as a tab-delimited file. It's a standard export format, but since every application is different, the steps will vary.
How it works
- You can also export data as a tab-delimited file from most spreadsheet applications. Make sure your file ends with a ".txt" extension.
- After you have a tab-delimited version of your audience, open it in a spreadsheet, like Microsoft Excel, to arrange and format your columns for import to Mailchimp. When you export the final, edited document from Excel, make sure to save it as a tab-delimited file again.
If you run into other problems with your import, check out these import troubleshooting tips.
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