Import your data (CSV)

If you have been tracking your plants in Notion, Google Sheets or Excel, you can bring them all into Plantory at once. No need to retype them one by one.

The only column you need is the name. Everything else comes across if it is there, and stays empty if it is not. Column order does not matter, and you do not need to clean anything up first.

1. Export a CSV file

Whatever you use today, the job is the same: save it as CSV.

Google Sheets

File → Download → Comma-separated values (.csv). That is all.

Notion

Open the database, click … at the top right → Export → choose CSV.

If you get a ZIP file, unzip it and use the CSV inside.

Excel

Save As and choose “CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)”.

This is the one thing to watch. Plain “CSV (Comma delimited)” saves in a legacy encoding, and accented or non-Latin characters will come through garbled. Pick the option with UTF-8 in the name.

Not in a spreadsheet yet?

Start from our template. Download it, open it in Google Sheets or Excel, fill in your plants, then save it as CSV using the steps above.

Download the template

The three sample rows are there to show the format — delete them before importing.

2. Get the file onto your phone

iPhone: save it to iCloud Drive, AirDrop it, or email it to yourself
Android: save it to Google Drive, or put it in the device’s Downloads folder

If you would rather stay on your phone the whole time, you can download the file straight from the Google Sheets app.

3. Import it in Plantory

Open the app and go to your profile from the top right of the home screen.
Choose “Import data” and pick your CSV file.
Plantory shows you the column mapping it guessed — “Plant name → Name”, and so on. Correct anything it got wrong. You can set a column to “Don’t import”, or to “Keep in notes” for information Plantory has no field for.
You will see how many plants will be imported and how many will be skipped. Check it, then tap Import.

Even after it finishes, Undo removes everything from that import in one go. Plants you had before are never touched.

What comes across

Column names are matched automatically against the common spellings below. Anything else you can map by hand on the import screen.

Plantory field	Column names it recognises
Name (required)	Name / Plant / Plant name / Title
Category	Category / Type / Genus
Scientific name	Scientific name / Botanical name / Species
Cultivar	Cultivar / Variety / Clone
Acquired	Purchase date / Acquired / Date
Price	Price / Cost
Shop	Shop / Vendor / Seller / Store
Location	Location / Place / Shelf
Pot size / Soil	Pot size / Soil / Substrate / Mix
Watering interval	Interval / Watering interval / Water every
Last watered	Last watered / Last watering
Status	Status / State (a value containing “rooting” is imported as rooting)
Tags	Tags / Labels (separate several with commas)
Notes	Notes / Memo / Comment / Description

Dates can be written as 2026/04/12, 2026-04-12 or Apr 12, 2026.

How the import behaves

A row whose name matches a plant you already have is skipped, so you never end up with duplicates. The count is shown before you run it.
If the same name appears several times in your file, each one is imported as its own plant, numbered ①②③… by acquisition date. This is for people who keep several plants of the same variety. You can rename them afterwards.
Last watered is imported as an actual watering entry, so it shows up in the care log and the next watering date is calculated from it.
Photos cannot be imported — a CSV cannot carry them. Add them from the app afterwards.
The free plan has a limit on how many plants you can register. If your file would exceed it, you are told before anything is written — an import never stops halfway.

If something goes wrong

What you see	What to do
Garbled characters	The file was saved from Excel in something other than CSV UTF-8. Save it again with UTF-8.
You cannot pick the file	Check that it ends in `.csv`. A ZIP file cannot be selected.
Rows with no name	Usually empty rows left at the bottom of the sheet. They are skipped automatically — carry on.
Category came in as “Other”	The category name did not match one of Plantory’s. Change it per plant after importing.
Too many rows at once	About 500 plants per import. Split the file and run it twice.

Still stuck? Write to [email protected] — send the CSV along and we will take a look.