Importing eBird sightings to My Birding

If you are an eBird user and want to import your data to My Birding, carefully follow these steps.

Data setup

From the eBird main page (

  1. Click on “My eBird” from the header menu and then on “Download my data”. The direct link to download data is

  2. Follow the instructions on your screen.

  3. Once you receive the confirmation email, download the file to your local device.

  4. Each import process to My Birding is limited to 10,000 rows. If your file contains more, you will need to split it into separate files, then save each of them as a CSV file with the following options:

    • Separator: comma or semi-colon
    • Text delimiter: " (double quote)
    • Character set: Unicode (UTF-8)
    • Quoted field as text

Data downloaded from another eBird page will be rejected by our import tool, so please export your data from "Download my data" ( only. Do not try to import a file downloaded from a single “Location Life List”, as it will not work.

Create the import to My Birding

Follow these steps in order to upload your records to My Birding:

  1. To create a new import, go to the My Birding main page and scroll down to the blue block called "Import your sightings from external sources". Click on the "Start a new import process" link.

  2. Choose “eBird” as the external source.

  3. Add your CSV file and click on the Upload button.

  4. Once uploaded, scroll down to the “Continue to next step” button and click on it.

  5. If your file is valid, a confirmation message will appear and you can go to the next step.
    If not, some instructions will be displayed in order to help you to locate the errors in the file’s sheet. You will have to edit your file and save it as you already did before. Upload your file and click on the “Save import configuration” to see if the system validates it.

  6. When you’re ready, hit the red button “Enable import process”.

During the import process

The process converts each row from the exported CSV file into sightings along with their respective birdlists.

During the import process, do NOT edit any birdlist or sighting until it is completed.

The system imports the data from the queued CSV files progressively and in the order of arrival of users’ requests. Please be patient!

The page will refresh automatically every 10 minutes to show the progress of the import process.

After the import process

After the import is done, a confirmation message will be displayed, along with a few links to check and improve the imported data.

If some unrecognized species still remain, you will be able to either edit each sighting to manually choose a new one, or choose the correct species for all the sightings affected by the same unrecognized species. The system will make some suggestions so the species can be conveniently and easily corrected.

← Back to General considerations on importing data to My Birding