Import contacts by CSV: mapping, dedupe, verification

If you're bringing contacts in from a spreadsheet — a trade show list, a partner's referral sheet, an export from another tool — the import wizard maps your columns to Current's fields, checks for duplicates, and lets you undo the whole batch if something looks wrong. Companies aren't imported separately; they're created or matched automatically from a company name or website column on each row.

Column matching is AI-assisted: when you upload a file, Current reads the header names plus a few sample rows and matches them to its fields — so "Work E-Mail", "Acct Name", or a column in another language still lands in the right place, and confidently matched columns get an AI-matched badge. You always see the full mapping and can change any column before importing; if the AI assist is unavailable, the wizard says so and falls back to keyword matching. Files don't have to be comma-separated, either — semicolon-separated CSVs (the European Excel default) and tab-separated exports are detected and parsed automatically.

1. 1
   Open Sales → Contacts and click Import

   This is a leadership action — tenant admins and sales managers run imports; Account Executives don't see the button.
2. 2
   Upload your CSV

   Current reads the header row and guesses which column is which — email, first/last name, company, phone. Confidently-matched columns are flagged so you can spot-check them fast.
3. 3
   Confirm the mapping

   Fix any column Current guessed wrong. You'll see a live preview of the first few rows mapped to real fields before you commit to anything.
4. 4
   Name the batch or tag

   Give the import a name — this becomes a tag you can filter by later, so "Spring trade show 2026" stays a distinct group inside your contacts.
5. 5
   Review duplicates

   Current matches incoming rows against your existing contacts by email. Each row shows what it will do — create, update, tag only, or skip — and you can override any row before running the import.
6. 6
   Run it and check the report

   The import runs in the background with a progress bar. When it finishes you get a batch report, and a one-click Undo if you need to back the whole thing out.

• ＋You need an email address plus a name or a company on each row — that's the minimum Current (and your PSA, downstream) needs to create a usable contact.
• ＋If a row matches a contact that's synced from your PSA, the import only adds a tag — it never overwrites a field the PSA owns.
• ＋If a row matches a contact Current owns outright, the import only fills in blanks — it won't clobber information you already have.

A list in Current is a tag with a name — importing into a named list, and importing with a batch tag, land you in the same place. Once contacts carry a tag, that tag is one of the stackable filters in the audience builder, so an imported list becomes a targetable audience immediately. See "Campaigns and audiences" for how that filter works in the composer.

A list isn't only an audience to email — you can qualify its people one by one. On Sales → Leads, click "Import from list," pick the list, and choose some or all of its members. They land on the leads board under the Lists source filter, alongside your website and manual leads.

• ＋Anyone already sitting in the funnel is skipped, shown to you before you commit, and counted in the result — you never quietly create a second lead for the same person.
• ＋Imported leads arrive unrouted with no response timer, because they are people you chose to work rather than an enquiry waiting on a reply. The clock starts when someone routes one.
• ＋Nothing is pushed to your PSA. These contacts and their companies are already in your CRM, which is what made them list members in the first place.
• ＋A dynamic list resolves its filter at import time, so you get who is on it now, not who was on it when you built it.

Full detail on the board, the source filter, and what converting one of these leads does is in "Website leads: intake forms, routing, and SLA timers."

Import doesn't verify email addresses on its own — verification is a separate step you run afterward, from the list. Open the list and choose to verify it; Current estimates the cost before it spends any credits, and only checks addresses that are unverified or haven't been checked in the last six months.