Import listings from a CSV file

A CSV import turns a spreadsheet into live listings. It is the quickest way to fill a new marketplace, move listings over from software that isn’t listed in Move your site to Yclas, or add a supplier’s catalogue in one go.

For every row, Yclas:

finds the seller by email address, or creates a member account for them;
finds the category and location by name, or creates them;
publishes the listing;
downloads its photos from the web addresses you give.

CSV imports run in Move your site to Yclas, under Tools. You check a preview before anything is written, and you can undo the import afterwards.

Before you start

Set up your custom fields first. To import custom field values, the fields must already exist under Listings › Custom Fields.
Check the number of photos. The import takes as many photo columns as Photos per listing allows, under Listings › Settings › Form fields.
Check your plan. The import stops when you reach the number of listings your plan allows.

Build the file

Save your spreadsheet as CSV (comma-separated values), encoded as UTF-8, with the column names in the first row. The names and the order of the columns are up to you: on the next step you tell Yclas which column is which. Use these names and Yclas matches them for you:

title,description,price,category,location,address,phone,website,user_email,user_name,date,image_1,image_2,image_3

Field	What to put in it
Title	The listing title. Rows without one are skipped.
Seller email	The seller’s email. If no member has it, an account is created. Rows without a valid email are skipped.
Seller name	The seller’s name, for new accounts. Without it, the part of the email before the @ is used.
Description	The listing text. Basic HTML is converted to the site’s formatting.
Price	A number. Currency symbols and thousands separators are removed: `1.500,00`, `$ 20` and `1500` all work. Empty means no price.
Category	The category name, exactly as on your site. A new name creates a new top-level category; empty puts the listing in General.
Location	The location name. A new name creates a new top-level location. Optional.
Address, Phone, Website	Optional.
Language	A language code such as `en_US`, if your site is multilingual. Rows without one, or with a language your site doesn’t offer (such as `English` or `en`), get your site’s main language.
Date published	When the listing was published, for example `2026-10-01` or `2026-10-01 14:30:00`. Empty means today.
Photo 1 (URL), Photo 2 (URL)…	The full web address of each photo, starting with `https://`. Leave empty if there is none.

Columns that match none of these are ignored. Stock levels can’t be imported: set them on the listings afterwards.

Custom fields

Add one column per custom field you want to fill. Name it cf_ followed by the field’s name, for example cf_bedrooms, and Yclas matches it; any other name you can pick on the next step. You don’t need a column for every field. Use 1 or 0 for checkboxes, YYYY-MM-DD for dates, and the option text exactly as it is set up for drop-down fields.

Import the file

In the admin panel, go to Tools and click Start in the Move your site to Yclas card. (Import on Listings › All listings opens the same page.)
Under Where are you moving from?, choose CSV file (listings or users). Choose your file (up to 25 MB) and click Upload and continue.
On Map columns and fields, check that This file has says Listings, and that each field shows the right column. Pick — not used — for any field your file doesn’t have. Fields marked Required (the title and the seller email) need a column. Click Continue: preview.
On Review before importing, check the number of listings, the first 10 listings and the rows that will be skipped. Nothing has been imported yet. If every row would be skipped, fix the mapping or the file and click Start over.
Click Import … listings and … users (Import listings when no new members are created) and keep the page open until it finishes.
Check the result in Listings › All listings.

If you leave the page, go back to Tools › Move your site to Yclas and click Continue: importing….

What to know about imported listings

They go live straight away. Imported listings skip moderation and payment.
Nobody is emailed. Sellers don’t get a “listing published” email and new members don’t get a welcome email. Listings aren’t posted to your social media channels and don’t trigger listing alerts.
New members get a random password. They set their own with Forgot password on the login page.
Old dates don’t expire listings. A listing keeps its date unless your expiry setting would already have expired it; then it is dated today and gets a full listing period.
Photos must be online. Each photo is downloaded from its address after the listings are in. Photos behind a login, on a site that blocks downloads, bigger than 10 MB or not in JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP are skipped, and the listing is imported without them.
Names must match. “Car” and “Cars” are different categories, and so are “New York” and “New York City”. A name is matched wherever it is in your category or location tree, and a new name is created at the top level, so create subcategories first if you want listings filed under them.
Up to 20,000 listings per file. Split bigger files.

No spreadsheet? Add listings from text

A new site’s first listings often already exist somewhere else: posts in your Facebook group or WhatsApp chat, a list of things for sale, or a page of your old site. Instead of typing them in one by one, paste the text and let AI split it into separate listings.

Create your categories first: the AI files each listing in one of them.
Go to Tools and click Start in the Move your site to Yclas card.
In the Add listings from text card, paste the text (up to 12,000 characters).
Tick the box to confirm the listings are your own, or that the people who posted them agreed to have them on your site, and click Make listings and continue.
On Map columns and fields, choose the Category: The category the AI chose for each, or one category for all of them. In Listed under, keep your own email or enter the email of an existing account on your site. Click Continue: preview.
On Review before importing, check the listings, then import them as for a CSV file.

What to know:

Up to 20 listings per paste. Paste the rest in another go, up to 10 times a day.
Contact details are left out. The AI copies no phone numbers, emails, addresses, names or links, so other people’s details from a group don’t end up on your site. It never guesses a price, and writes in your site’s language.
No photos or locations. Add them to the listings afterwards if you need them.
Titles already on your site are skipped, so pasting the same posts twice doesn’t duplicate them.
It uses your AI allowance. Each listing written counts as one listing from a photo for the month.
The listings are published like any other import, and you can undo it.

Undo an import

On Tools › Move your site to Yclas, Undo this import deletes the listings the import created and the members it created for them, with their photos. You can undo the latest import for a week after it finished. Members who have used their account since keep it. See Cancel or undo an import.

When something goes wrong

Message	What to check
Could not read this file as CSV.	Save the file again as CSV, comma-separated, UTF-8.
That file is bigger than the 25 MB limit.	Split it into several files.
Row …: no title, skipped.	That row’s title column is empty, or the wrong column is mapped to Title.
Row … (…): no valid seller email, skipped.	That row’s seller email is empty or not a valid address.
Your plan allows … listings: the import stopped there…	Your plan’s listing limit. See Plans and billing. Upgrade, then import the rest.
Photo …: …	That photo couldn’t be downloaded. The message says why.

Move your site to Yclas — import from Osclass, WordPress and other platforms.
Import from a feed — import listings from an XML or JSON feed, and update them by importing it again.
Import categories and locations — build the tree before you import listings.
Import users from a CSV file — bring in members without listings.
Custom fields — create the fields you want to fill.
Business sellers — dealers import their own listings from a CSV file or a stock feed.
Add businesses from open data — fill a new directory from open map data, included in your plan.
Import businesses from Google — fill a new directory from a Google Places search.
Property pack — import an estate agent’s Kyero or XML property feed.