Moving your list from Buttondown

Buttondown exports your subscribers as a CSV, and Issue Mint takes two things from it: the email address, and a first name if the file has a column of plain names. Buttondown’s other columns, which are the interesting ones, have nowhere to go on this side.

That is the main thing to plan for. A Buttondown list often carries tags, notes and metadata that you have been using for real, and none of it survives the move.

Where the export lives

Buttondown’s export is an account-level function rather than a button on the subscriber list, so look in your settings for the section dealing with exports or your data.

Buttondown can give you more than the subscribers: a full export may include your sent emails and other records as separate files. Take the subscribers file and ignore the rest for import purposes, though it is worth keeping the whole download somewhere safe as an archive of the account.

Which columns matter

The address column, and a name column if you have one.

Expect the file to also carry a column describing what kind of subscriber each row is, the date they were added, any tags you applied, free-text notes, and a metadata column holding whatever custom fields you set up. Issue Mint reads none of that, and it reads no status column either, so the selection of who comes across is made in the file rather than during the import.

If your reader names live inside the metadata column rather than in a column of their own, which is common, you have two options: split them into a new column in a spreadsheet before you upload, or import addresses only. Importing without names is not a loss worth an afternoon. A curated newsletter opens with links rather than a greeting more often than not.

Which rows to leave behind

Delete the rows for anybody who unsubscribed, and give some thought to the ones who never confirmed.

Unsubscribed readers are straightforward: bringing them back is how a new sender collects complaints, and it undoes the choice they made. Unconfirmed readers are a judgement call, because Issue Mint imports every row as active and sends no confirmation email, so an address that never confirmed on Buttondown arrives here as though it had. Issue Mint’s own signup forms do ask for confirmation, which is the difference between a form and an import, and the reason the mapping screen asks you to confirm that these people gave you permission.

What to map, and what the import asks for

Point the email field at the address column, choose a name column or turn names off, tick the permission box, and write a sentence about where the list came from.

Issue Mint pre-selects the columns from the header row, so a Buttondown export normally opens with the right ones already chosen. Importing a CSV has the file rules, including the 20 MB ceiling and the encodings that a spreadsheet program can save by mistake. If you only need to add two or three people who signed up elsewhere, adding someone by hand is quicker than building a file for them.

What the counts mean afterwards

An import ends with three figures and an email to tell you it has finished.

Imported is what is now on your list. Skipped is addresses that were already there, addresses that appear twice in the file, and anything on the suppression list from a previous complaint or hard bounce. Invalid is rows that are not addresses at all, and addresses on domains that can no longer receive mail. The refused ones are named on your subscribers page and kept for 180 days, so the addresses it would not take stay readable long after the email has been filed.

Buttondown lists are often small and well kept, so the usual result is an imported figure a handful lower than the file’s row count, made up of a few dead domains from years ago. If the gap is much bigger than that, the invalid list will tell you why.

After the list, the writing

Your Buttondown archive, drafts and automations stay where they are. Only the readers move.

What you do next is write your first issue in the composer, which works from links you save through the week rather than from a blank page. The Issue Mint and Buttondown comparison is worth a read if you are still weighing it up, and it is honest about the sort of newsletter Buttondown suits better.