WhimsicalWhimsical
Help Center

Loading…Open app
Whimsical statusStatusContact Us

Importing to Whimsical

Importing content into Whimsical lets you consolidate your work (visual boards, documents, and projects) into one intuitive, collaborative platform. While there’s no bulk import feature for entire boards, Whimsical’s simple interface makes it quick to transfer your most important content.

Importing tasks from a CSV fileCopied!

If you’re currently using another project management tool (like Linear, Trello, Asana, Jira, or ClickUp) but you’d like to try working the Whimsical way, you can export your existing tasks as a CSV and import them directly into Whimsical. 👌

First, go to Workspace settings, which you'll find under your workspace name in the top left corner:

Scroll down to Task importer and select CSV import:

Drag and drop your CSV file, or select it from your computer:

Pro tip: If your current projects tool only supports JSON export, you can use a tool like this one to convert it to a CSV, and import it.

Now, for the most important part; matching the fields from your CSV, with task fields in Whimsical — Taking your time to ensure accurate matches at this step, will make everything quicker and easier in future.

The different field types found in your CSV file are shown on the left, and to the right of each one you’ll find a dropdown where you can choose where this information appears on your new tasks, (or you can ignore any that are no longer relevant):

This table has a detailed description of how each of the fields works:

Label

Description

Title

Searchable name of the task

Description

Task body text - supports rich formatting

Additional text

All other fields will be appended below the main task description text

Assignee

The task will be assigned to the member of your workspace with a matching email address - If they do not exist in Whimsical, you can invite them at the next step.

Status

Stage the task is at (e.g. “in progress”)

A project’s Kanban view will derive from these statuses

Multiple tags

If the value of this field contains a list of items, they’ll be split and added as separate tags

E.g.: “Marketing, Urgent, Website” will be three tags in Whimsical:

  • Marketing
  • Urgent
  • Website

Single tag

Separation will be ignored, and the complete value of the field will be added as a single tag. E.g.: “Marketing, Urgent, Website” will be one tag in Whimsical:

  • Marketing, Urgent, Website

Ignore from import

This field will not be imported or stored anywhere in Whimsical

Note: If there are any issues with the fields chosen in the import, you can always delete the newly created project and start again.

Click Next step, and if there were email addresses in your CSV used as assignee this is the step where you can invite anyone who is not already a member of your Whimsical workspace:

For each new email address found you can invite them as an editor or viewer (click here to learn more about roles). If you choose not to invite them, they will not have any tasks assigned to them.

And that’s it! Click Start import.

A new project will be created with all imported tasks - We’ll let you know when it’s done on the upload page and in your notification inbox:

Importing board contentCopied!

We don't currently have any direct importers, but there are a couple of ways you can bring content into Whimsical:

  • You can upload an image of content you have created elsewhere. We support JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, WEBP, SVG, and AVIF file formats.
  • You can import text directly into boards as mind maps or stacks of cards.
  • You can paste Mermaid code directly into boards as flowcharts or sequence diagrams.

Text import for mind maps and stacks of task cardsCopied!

To automatically turn text into a mind map or a stack of tasks, copy the text and paste it into Whimsical.

For a mind map:

  1. Copy a list from a notepad, or even a Whimsical doc
  2. Select the main node of a mind map and hit paste

The same process works for stacks of tasks:

  1. Make sure you've selected task mode first
  2. Copy a list, or a set of cells
  3. Click the canvas and paste to get a line of task cards
  4. Or, add a stack using S and select the stack before pasting to add the tasks to it

Paste Mermaid code as a flowchart or sequence diagramCopied!

You can paste Mermaid code to Whimsical to turn your Mermaid diagrams into Whimsical flowcharts or sequence diagrams.

Pro tip: Try this custom GPT to convert images of your existing flowcharts into Mermaid code - perfect as a starting point to import diagrams from other board tools.

This should make it easier to bring in diagrams from other tools or documents and continue working on them in Whimsical.

You can currently import the following Mermaid diagrams:

  • graph
  • sequenceDiagram
  • flowchart

Currently, these are the only supported Mermaid diagrams for import, and you also can't add subgraphs directly to your flowcharts. However, you can create subgraphs using rectangles, sections, or frames within Whimsical after pasting the main flowchart information.

Related articles

Written by:

  • Jack Jenkins

    Jack Jenkins

Summary

  1. Importing to Whimsical
  2. Importing tasks from a CSV file
  3. Importing board content
  4. Text import for mind maps and stacks of task cards
  5. Paste Mermaid code as a flowchart or sequence diagram