Bulk Import and Export
Flagsmith supports two levels of bulk import and export from the UI:
- Environment-level: export and import default feature states for a single environment. Useful for quickly copying feature values between environments or projects.
- Project-level: export and import an entire project's feature configuration, including segments, segment overrides, and optionally identity overrides, tags, and custom fields. Useful for cloning a project or migrating between Flagsmith instances.
For exporting an entire organisation (including all projects), see Organisation Import and Export.
Common concepts
Merge strategy
When importing, you must select a merge strategy to handle entities that already exist in the target project:
- Skip: existing entities are left unchanged. Only new entities from the export file are created. For example, if you are importing ten features but two already exist, only eight will be added. This is the safest option and is best for organisations that want to retain their existing data.
- Overwrite Destructive: existing entities that match by name are deleted and recreated from the export file. This affects all environments. Only use this when every entity in the export is known to be authoritative.
Retention
Export files are available for download for two weeks. If an export is needed for a longer period, download it and store a local backup.
Environment-level export
Environment-level export captures default feature states for a single environment. This is the simplest way to copy feature values between environments or projects.
What is exported?
We will export the following data:
- Flags
- Flag States (both boolean and text values)
- Multivariate values and weights
We will not export the following data:
- Feature-based Segments
- Segment overrides
- Flag custom fields
- Flag Schedules
- Tags associated with Flags
- Individual and group owners associated with Flags
Exporting
On the Export tab of the project settings page, select Environment Export and choose the source environment from the drop-down list. If required, select one or more feature tags to filter the features.
By clicking the Export Features button, the feature export should quickly process and a list of processed feature exports is available at the bottom of the page.
Importing
On the Import tab of the project settings page, select Environment Import. You will find the feature import functionality, complete with file upload at the bottom of the page.
The target environment is the environment to inherit the features of the exported environment. All other environments will be set to the values defined when the feature was initially created. Use with caution, especially when using the Overwrite Destructive merge strategy.
Project-level export
Project-level export captures the full feature configuration for a project, including segments and overrides. This is the recommended way to clone a project or migrate feature configuration between Flagsmith instances.
What is exported?
Project-level export always includes the following data:
| Data | Included | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Features (name, type, default value) | Always | |
| Feature states per environment (enabled, value) | Always | Current live state only |
| Multivariate options and weights | Always | |
| Segments (rules and conditions) | Always | |
| Segment overrides per environment | Always | |
| Environment names and keys | Always |
The following data can optionally be included in the export. You will be prompted to select these options in the UI:
| Data | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Identity overrides | Off | Can significantly increase export size |
| Tags | On | |
| Custom fields and metadata | Off | |
| Integration configurations | Off | Includes third-party integration settings per environment |
The following data is never included in a project-level export:
- Users, owners, and group owners
- Change requests and approvals
- Scheduled flag changes
- Version history (only the current live state is exported)
- Audit logs
- Flag analytics
Export format
Project-level exports use a JSON format that is a superset of the environment-level export format. An environment-level export file can be imported using project-level import (but not the other way around, since it contains additional data).
Exporting
On the Export tab of the project settings page, select Project Export. Choose which optional data to include, then click Export Project.
The export runs asynchronously. Once complete, you can download the export file from the list at the bottom of the page.
Importing
On the Import tab of the project settings page, select Project Import. Upload the export file and select the merge strategy.
When using Overwrite Destructive, segments and their overrides are treated as a single unit: if a segment is overwritten, all of its rules, conditions, and associated feature overrides are replaced.
Versioning
If the target project uses feature versioning, importing with the Overwrite Destructive strategy will create new feature versions for any features that are modified. The Skip strategy does not create new versions.
Environments
If the export contains environments that do not exist in the target project, they will be created automatically. If an environment with the same name already exists, the import will update feature states in that environment according to the selected merge strategy.