If you are coming to ApptOnly from another booking tool, your existing client list comes with you. CSV is the format that moves between apps. (what is a CSV)
Step 1: Export from your old tool
Each platform has its own export path:
- MassageBook — Reports / Clients / Export
- Square Appointments — Customers / Directory / More / Export
- Acuity / Squarespace Scheduling — Clients / Import & Export / Export
- Vagaro — Clients / Tools / Export Clients
- Booker / Mindbody — Reports / Client Data Export
- Calendly — limited; see notes below
If your tool only offers Excel export, open the file and choose Save As, CSV (UTF-8).
If you do not have an existing tool and you have your client list in a Google Contacts, an Apple Contacts export, or a manually-built spreadsheet, those work too. ApptOnly does not require a specific app of origin.
Calendly is a special case
Calendly does not maintain a client database the way booking-first tools do; it maintains invitee records per event type. To get a clean client list, export invitees for each event type, then deduplicate by email in a spreadsheet before importing.
Step 2: Check the file before uploading
You do not have to clean the file, but a quick look saves time. Open it in your spreadsheet app and confirm:
- The first row is a header naming the columns.
- There is a column with email addresses (or with phone numbers if email is unavailable).
- Names are split or combined consistently (either separate first and last columns, or a single "name" column; either works).
You do not need to remove duplicates or fix formatting. ApptOnly's importer does both.
Step 3: Upload
In ApptOnly:
- Go to Clients in the sidebar.
- Click Import.
- Drag your CSV onto the upload area or click to pick a file.
The importer parses the file and shows a preview:
- Which column maps to which ApptOnly field (first name, last name, email, phone). You can change any mapping with a dropdown.
- A count of rows it will create, rows that look like duplicates of existing clients, and rows that look malformed.
Step 4: Review duplicates
Duplicates are matched by email. If a row's email already exists on a client in your account:
- By default, the duplicate is skipped and the existing client is preserved.
- You can choose to merge instead, which fills in any blank fields on the existing record with values from the CSV row.
Rows with the same email inside the CSV itself are deduplicated automatically before import.
Step 5: Confirm
When the preview looks right, click Import. ApptOnly creates the clients and shows you a summary. The clients are immediately available in your Clients list, searchable, and ready to be selected when you create bookings manually.
Troubleshooting
"This file is not a CSV." Your tool probably exported an Excel file with a .csv extension. Open it and re-save as CSV (UTF-8).
"Phone numbers look wrong." ApptOnly normalizes phone numbers but cannot infer country code if none is present. US numbers without country code default to +1. International numbers should have a leading +.
"Some clients did not import." Look at the "malformed rows" count on the preview. The most common cause is a row with no email and no phone number, which the importer cannot use as a unique identifier.
"I imported the wrong list." Go to Clients, filter by created date, and bulk-delete the recent additions. You cannot un-import as one action, but the bulk delete from the Clients screen will undo most of it.