How to import your passwords and secure data from other applications into Codebook.
Codebook can import your passwords, credit card information, and notes from several other popular applications, listed below. To see all the available import options, select File > Import. Information about the Export feature is also available.
Codebook's Import feature is available on macOS and Windows, it is not available on Android and iOS.
Many customers adopting Codebook for their password manager already have their data stored in another app or format. Since most password managers have a feature allowing you to export your records to the CSV (comma-separated values) format, Codebook's Import feature expects data in CSV format. Usually some modification to this file is necessary before Codebook can import it, but in some cases little to no edits are required.
Caution: You are about to export your passwords into an unencrypted file! We recommend you temporarily disable any backup software you use to avoid creating a backup of the unencrypted file. Anybody with access to this file will be able to see your passwords and other secrets.
There are a few requirements on the format of your CSV file for import:
Editing a CSV file "by hand" (e.g. in a text editor), especially a large file, can be quite difficult. We recommend using spreadsheet editor software that can Export or Save As your file in CSV format. Excel, Numbers, and OpenOffice.org's Calc all do this reasonably well.
Entry, used for naming a record in Codebook.Category, used for naming the Category where the record belongs in Codebook.Codebook for Windows imports and exports in our modified Codebook CSV format. Please see the section on Codebook CSV below for additional adjustments users must make to their CSV file for import in Codebook for Windows. Feature development is currently underway to change this, please check back later.
In addition to the Entry and Category columns, there are a few other special column names used by Codebook's Import feature that cannot be used to label Fields:
| Note Entry | To create a Note record for long form text. |
|---|---|
| Entry Icon | The icon in Codebook to assign to the record. |
| Category Icon | The icon in Codebook to assign to the category. |
Any value in the Entry Icon or Category Icon fields will be checked against the list of icons in Codebook before it is used to make sure it is valid. Invalid values will be ignored.
A sample file might look something like this:
Entry,Category,Account,Email,Note,Password,Phone,PIN,Username,Website "Credit Card",Financial,3759 876613 21001,,"exp:12/12 CVV:3829",secret,1-800-123-4567,4,mscott,http://mycreditcard.com "Insurance Policy",Financial,3759 876613 21001,,secret: name of your first pet? spot,secret,1-800-123-4567,4,mscott,http://myinsurance.com "Shopping Website",Personal,,mscott@mailinator.com,,secret,,,,http://paypal.com
Note that newlines are supported in a CSV as long as the data is properly escaped. In the above example the first two lines after the header make up the first record, due to the line break in the note field, demonstrating why it's easier to edit CSV files in a spreadsheet editor.
In addition to regular CSV files, Codebook also support Codebook CSV, a slight modification to the format that allows us to store more than one value in a particular field. This is more useful for exporting from and re-importing into Codebook itself. Most customers will not need this format and it is presented here for completeness and accuracy.
A record in Codebook can have any number of Fields attached to it, even the same type of field multiple times. For instance, an Entry record could have two Password fields attached to it. If you need to have multiple fields with the same label: put them in the same column in your CSV file, joined by a pipe | character. This also means that any pipe characters already in your data/passwords must be escaped before import, with a backslash \.
In the following example, the first row has two password fields, the second row has one, escaped:
Entry,Category,Email,Password "Bank of Mars",Financial,wgray@mars.sol,myoldpassword|mynewpassword "Bank of Duckberg",Financial,scrooge@mcdu.ck,f\|x7h3r4t3s
Using that example, the first entry will have two Password fields, myoldpassword and mynewpasssword. The second entry will only have one Password field, because the pipe is escaped, so the resulting value would be f|x7h3r4t3s.
This feature is currently limited to Codebook for macOS. If you are using Codebook for Windows please jump to Import Codebook CSV.
This is the basic set of steps you'll want to take to import data either from a file you created yourself, one you exported from Codebook, or one from another app.
Codebook for Window's Import feature expects this format. Work is underway now to allow traditional CSV import format.
This is the basic set of steps you'll want to take to import data either from a file you created yourself, one you exported from Codebook, or one from another app.
| (pipe) characters in your data and escape them with \ (backslash)Now you're ready to get started using Codebook!
If you are having trouble importing your data or have other questions, please contact Codebook Support.