One-time files, in or out. Import people, connections or occasions from vCard, CSV, JSON or iCal, and export everything again whenever you like — to back up or to move elsewhere.

Demand Bridges are files that cross once, when you ask: an address book you bring in, or a copy of your Space you take out. Open them from the Bridges hub.

A file never runs on its own: it moves when you move it, in either direction, and the formats are ordinary ones rather than an export only Longtime can read.

Importing a file

Start an import and pick the file. Longtime tells the format from the file's extension:

Format	What it can hold
vCard (.vcf)	People, with their contact details
Comma-separated values (.csv)	People or connections — you say which, then review the columns
JSON (.json)	People, connections or occasions — you say which, then review the fields
iCal (.ics)	Connections, proposed for your review — all-day and multi-day events as occasions

vCard is the format worth reaching for first. A vCard (.vcf) is the contact-card file your phone or contacts app exports — Export in Google Contacts, for example, or File → Export → Export vCard in Contacts on a Mac. It carries names, phone numbers, email addresses, addresses and birthdays in fields Longtime already understands — so it needs no mapping at all.

Suggesting or applying

Next, choose how the records arrive:

Suggest — every record lands in your Suggestions inbox, for you to approve one by one.
Apply — records go straight in. Longtime adds details you do not have yet and never changes ones you do; where the file disagrees, it asks you in Suggestions.

Calendar files always arrive as suggestions, whichever you choose.

Give it a label if you like — "From my phone" — and start the import.

An import matches each record to the people you already have — by Longtime's own ID, email, phone or name — so it does not add a second copy of anyone it can recognize. If someone slips through, under a different spelling with no shared email or phone, Longtime suggests merging them. A file you exported from Longtime comes back to the same records.

Mapping columns

A CSV or JSON file goes to a mapping screen first, which shows each column in your file and where Longtime thinks it goes. Check each one, choose a field or skip the column, and confirm; Longtime remembers your answers, so the next file shaped the same way needs fewer.

After an import

Each import in the list shows what happened — "4 added · 2 updated · 3 to review · 1 skipped". From there you can download the file you uploaded, run it again, or remove its record (which removes the import from this list, not the people it brought in).

If an import left suggestions waiting, removing it asks whether to keep them in your inbox or withdraw them too. People it already added stay either way.

Import adds; it does not replace

An import brings records into your Space. It never deletes anything, and it never overwrites what you have — so a file that is missing someone does not remove them.

Exporting

You can take everything out again, whenever you like. That is deliberate, and it is not a feature we would remove: a tool that holds your address book and cannot hand it back is a tool you cannot leave, and the point of paying month to month is that leaving stays possible.

Start an export, choose what to export — people, connections or occasions — and a format:

What	Formats
People	vCard, CSV, JSON
Connections	iCal, CSV, JSON
Occasions	JSON

For people, if you have Pools, you can export everyone in your Space or just one of them. Add an optional label — "Full backup" — and create the export. When the file is ready it appears in the list to download, and the Bridges hub says so too.

Backing up

There is no separate "download my data" button, because this is it. Export people, connections and occasions as JSON and a fresh import can rebuild them, matched back to the same records. A JSON or CSV export carries people with their contact details, circles and About text (in JSON, under "notes"), and their connections and occasions, but not their timezones. A vCard carries contact details and each person's timezone, but not circles or About text. No export includes the dated notes on a person's page, cadences, Pools or dates of death, so a fresh import will not restore those.

The import and export records in these lists, and their files, are kept for 90 days, then deleted. The people and connections an import brought in are not affected. Download any file you need before then.

Details

Files can be up to 10 MB.

For CSV and JSON, Longtime asks what the file holds — people or connections for CSV, and occasions too for JSON. A vCard or a calendar says so for itself; a spreadsheet cannot. Of the files you name the contents of, only JSON can hold occasions.

With Apply, where the file disagrees with what you have, the difference goes to Suggestions instead. Records that might be someone you already have, when Longtime is not sure, go to Suggestions too. People beyond your Space's limit are skipped, and counted as skipped.

A calendar file follows the same rules as a calendar you bring in (see Constant Bridges) — only events with someone else on them, guests matched by email address — except for dates: a file's one-off events are proposed whatever their date, and a repeating meeting only for its occurrences in about the last three months.

Longtime matches each record to your people by the hidden ID Longtime writes into every export, then by email address, then by phone number, and only then by name.

On the mapping screen, Longtime says why it made each pick — "Named exactly in the file", "You've mapped this before", "Best guess from the values". Picks it is unsure of are marked "needs answer", and columns it could not place are marked "skipped". Choose a field for either, or skip the column.

A "Best guess from the values" pick comes from AI: for a column whose name does not say what it holds, the name and a few of its values are used to suggest where it belongs. It is only ever a suggestion — you confirm every column. See the AI notice.