If you already have data in another program or on an electronic clock, you do not have to type it in again. ThatPigeon imports CSV and XLSX files, recognises the format on its own, and shows you a full preview before anything is saved.
Formats it reads
- MyLoft CSV — the bird export from MyLoft, nine standard columns. Full migration guide: Migrating from MyLoft?
- Benzing CSV / XLSX — arrivals from Benzing clocks (G2, M1, Club). Detailed guide: How to import Benzing files
- ThatPigeon CSV — our own export, useful for a backup or for moving between accounts
How the import works
- Open Settings → Import birds (CSV).
- Press Choose files. You can select several files at once — a CSV of birds, say, and three Benzing CSVs of arrivals from different weekends.
- ThatPigeon reads each file and shows the format it detected. If a file is not recognised, you get a warning in yellow.
The preview
Before anything is imported you see a clear summary:
- New birds — how many will be created (green)
- Already exist (skipped) — how many rings you already have, not duplicated
- references — birds named as parents but with no record of their own, created automatically with the bare minimum
- Race results — how many arrivals will be imported
- Trainings — how many training sessions
- Warnings — non-critical problems (yellow)
- Errors — problems that block an individual row (red)
Check the numbers and press the import button. Its text says exactly what will happen: "Import 47 birds and 230 results".
Mark-lost (birds that did not arrive)
When you import race results from Benzing, any bird in your loft that does not appear in the arrivals is automatically given the Lost status and a status note. If the bird comes home later, you simply set its status back to active on its own page.
Re-import
You can import the same file as many times as you like without risk. ThatPigeon spots duplicates by normalised ring number — existing birds are not overwritten, and results already recorded are not doubled. If you have filled anything in by hand since (a name, a colour, a pedigree), the import does not touch it.
Several files at once
Select more than one file in the picker. The app processes them all, combines them into a single preview, and imports them in one transaction. Useful for:
- the first import: a MyLoft CSV of birds plus several Benzing files of the season's arrivals
- the weekly update: just the new Benzing CSVs
After the import
- New birds appear in the bird list with the Active status.
- Results appear on each bird's page under its races.
- Link Sire and Dam by hand on the new birds to build the pedigrees.
A tip
Import early, fill in as you go. Bringing 200 birds in from a CSV and then adding photos and pedigrees one at a time is much faster than typing everything in from nothing.