Import your contacts

Importing contacts is often the first big operation when adopting a new tool. Done wrong, you end up with duplicates, mis-mapped fields, and an unusable CRM. Done right, you start with a clean, actionable base. Nexte offers 4 import methods, all with preview, automatic deduplication, and 24h rollback capability.

Method 1: CSV import

1. Prepare your file: 1 header row + 1 row per contact. UTF-8 encoding strongly recommended. Comma or semicolon separator (Nexte auto-detects).
2. Auto-recognized fields: `first_name`, `last_name`, `email`, `phone`, `company`, `job_title`, `tags` (separated by `;`), `notes`. Common variants (`Email`, `e-mail`, `Mail`) are also detected.
3. CRM → Import button → CSV. Drag-and-drop your file or browse.
4. Mapping step: Nexte suggests an automatic mapping. Adjust if a column isn't recognized, or ignore unneeded columns.
5. Preview step: first 5 rows shown as they'll be created. Check nothing is misplaced.
6. Run import. Depending on size (up to 10,000 contacts per import), takes 5 to 60 seconds. A summary email is sent on completion.

Method 2: Google Contacts

One-click connection via OAuth. No manual export, no file handling. Nexte syncs your Google contacts and can maintain continuous sync (real-time bidirectional changes) if enabled. Ideal if Google Workspace is your contact source of truth.

• Settings → Integrations → Google → Connect. Accept permissions (contact read only, not mail/calendar).
• Choose which Google groups to import (default: all). You can exclude groups (e.g., « Family »).
• Toggle continuous sync. Enabled: a change in Google propagates to Nexte within 5 minutes, and vice versa.
• Run the initial import. For 5,000 contacts, expect ~2 minutes.

Method 3: Outlook / Microsoft 365

Same principle as Google Contacts, via Microsoft OAuth. Compatible with personal Outlook and Microsoft 365 (Business / Enterprise). Continuous sync is also available. Limit: Microsoft allows syncing 5,000 contacts max per request, so very large bases are imported in batches (transparent to you).

Method 4: from another CRM

For HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Notion CRM, Airtable, Monday: export your contacts to CSV from the source tool, then use the CSV method above. Nexte provides pre-configured mapping templates for these 6 tools — select your source at the mapping step, and everything is aligned automatically.

Deduplication

Nexte detects duplicates on 3 criteria, in this order: exact email, exact phone (normalized to international), exact name + company. If a duplicate is detected during import, you have 3 options per contact: `Skip` (keep existing), `Merge` (combine non-empty fields from both), `Create anyway` (rare, for true homonyms).

• For imports >100 contacts, you can pick a global strategy instead of deciding one by one (`Merge all`, `Skip all`, etc.).
• Merged contacts keep the history of both versions (notes, interactions, files).
• Merges are reversible from the import history (Settings → Imports), for 24h.

Tags at import time

All contacts from an import automatically share a tag like `import-2026-04-26-csv` (today's date + source). This lets you easily find an import batch and filter/delete it in bulk if needed. You can also add custom tags at the mapping step (e.g., `prospects-q1` to bulk-tag all contacts from a file).