Importer
Import issues from your existing issue tracker into Linear.

Overview
We have two tools for importing issues. A concierge-style issue migration assistant takes you through the import process from start to finish. Our command line interface importer is more rudimentary and lets you import issues by uploading a CSV. It requires some technical knowledge but is more customizable.
Service | Issue Migration Assistant | CLI Importer |
---|---|---|
Jira | ✓ | ✓ |
Asana | ✓ | ✓ |
GitHub Issues | ✓ | ✓ |
Shortcut (Clubhouse) | ✓ | ✓ |
Pivotal Tracker | ✓ | |
Trello | ✓ | |
Linear > Linear | ✓ | |
Other services | ✓ |
G then S to go to Settings > Workspace > Import/Export
F then filter by Migrated label to find issues imported via the Issue Migration Assistant
Basics
Issue Migration Assistant
The issue migration assistant is our built-in importer that guides you through the process of importing issues to Linear from Asana, Jira, Shortcut (formerly Clubhouse) or GitHub.
It connects to your other issue trackers via the API to import issues from them. You'll need to authenticate to other services or share details with us so that we can view and transfer the issue data to Linear.
In general, we map basic features such as labels to their Linear equivalent. Labels will be imported as team-level labels. Attachments are imported either as an inline image in the description or a link to the file. If we can match users, we will map assignees. All imported issues include backlinks to the original issue URL in the previous issue tracker. If someone on your team imported issues in the past, you'll see a history of past imports on the settings page.
Find steps for the various importers below.
CLI importer
To import issues from other services including Trello, Pivotal Tracker, move issues from one Linear workspace to another, or to customize an import from Jira, Asana, GitHub, or Clubhouse, use our open source CLI importer.
Our Command Line interface (CLI) tool uses CSV format and requires some technical expertise. Access it at the link or from Settings > Workspace > Import/Export.
Import steps
Asana
Go to Settings > Workspace > Import/Export to import issues with our issue migration assistant. You don't need technical expertise to use the importer but will need to be a Linear admin.
Enter your Asana personal access token and Asana team name, then select which Linear team to import issues into and start importing.
We'll map fields in Asana to these fields in Linear:
Asana | Linear |
---|---|
Priority | Priority |
Notes | Issue description (converted to Markdown) |
Attached files | Added to description, all files except images are converted to links |
Tags | Labels (team-level) |
Assignee | Assignee |
Projects | Projects |
Issues cannot belong to multiple projects in Linear, so one project will be chosen if issues are assigned to multiple Asana projects.
You cannot customize or configure additional fields when using the Issue Migration Assistant. To create a custom import, you could customize the CLI importer.
Jira
Go to Settings > Workspace > Import/Export to import issues with our issue migration assistant. You don't need technical expertise to use the importer but will need to be a Linear admin. You will also need to be an admin of the associated project in Jira.
Enter your personal access token, project key, email address and installation or cloud hostname and then start the import. For the installation or cloud hostname, remember to remove the http://
and anything after .net
.
You will be guided through some configuration options during the import process. You will have the option to import into an existing team or a newly created team on your workspace. You will also have the option to map each Jira user to an existing Linear user, invite Jira users to your Linear workspace or take no action for certain Jira users.
We'll map fields in Jira to these fields in Linear:
Jira | Linear |
---|---|
Summary | Title |
Description | Converted into markdown and used as issue description |
Priority | Priority |
Issue Key | Used in backlink |
Issue type | Mapped to the most similar Linear status |
Type | Added as label (team-level) |
Release | Added as label (team-level) |
Epic | Added as project (or optionally as label) |
Comments | Comments |
You cannot customize or configure additional fields when using the Issue Migration Assistant. To create a custom import, you could customize the CLI importer.
GitHub Issues
Go to Settings > Workspace > Import/Export to import issues with our issue migration assistant. You don't need technical expertise to use the importer but will need to be a Linear admin.
OAuth into GitHub from the importer page, select the repo where your current Github issues live and then which team you want to import them into on Linear.
We'll map fields in GitHub Issues to these fields in Linear:
GitHub Issues | Linear |
---|---|
Title | Title |
Description | Description |
Labels | Labels (team-level) |
Projects | Projects |
Comments | Comments |
You cannot customize or configure additional fields when using the Issue Migration Assistant. To create a custom import, you could customize the CLI importer.
Shortcut (Clubhouse)
Go to Settings > Workspace > Import/Export to import issues with our issue migration assistant. You don't need technical expertise to use the importer but will need to be a Linear admin.
Enter your Shortcut workspace access token and Shortcut team name, then select which Linear team to import issues into and start importing.
We'll map fields in Shortcut Issues to these fields in Linear:
Shortcut | Linear |
---|---|
Name | Title |
Description | Issue description |
Tasks | Appended to the description |
External tickets | Appended to the description |
State | Mapped to the most similar Linear status |
Story type | Added as label (team-level) |
Tags | Added as label (team-level) |
Owners | First owner added as assignee when possible |
Epic | Added as label (team-level) |
Comments | Comments |
You cannot customize or configure additional fields when using the Issue Migration Assistant. To create a custom import, you could customize the CLI importer.
Trello
Follow the instructions listed in the CLI importer. Trello boards can be imported into a Linear team from the JSON export file, which can be obtained by going into Board → Show Menu → More → Print and Export → Export as JSON.
We'll map fields in Trello to these fields in Linear:
Trello | Linear |
---|---|
Name | Title |
Description | Trello markdown formatted description |
URL | URL of Trello card |
Labels | Added as a label (team-level) |
Attachments | Added as links in the description |
Comments (Optional) | Added in the description |
While the import is limited to these fields, the importer is open source (contributions welcome) so it's possible to customize the CLI importer.
Pivotal Tracker
Follow the instructions listed in the CLI importer. Pivotal Tracker projects can be imported into a Linear team from the CSV file exported from Pivotal. It only imports chores, features, and bugs.
We'll map fields in Pivotal Tracker to these fields in Linear:
Pivotal Tracker | Linear |
---|---|
Title | Title |
Description | Description (converted to Markdown) |
Labels | Added as a label (team-level) |
Owned By | Assignee |
URL | URL of Pivotal Tracker story |
Created at | Preserves the story creation date |
While the import is limited to these fields, the importer is open source (contributions welcome) so it's possible to customize the CLI importer.
Linear > Linear
The only way to move issues from one Linear workspace to another is to use the CLI importer. First, admins should export a CSV of workspace issues from the workspace you no longer want to use, then follow the instructions in the CLI importer. Archived issues will not be imported.
Archived issues will not be imported and some issue data will be lost in the transfer. If the issue data is not included in the list below, it will not be imported. One workaround is to use labels to preserve issue data (e.g. a label with Cycle 1), then upon transfer filter and update issues in bulk and remove the labels.
We'll only import the following issue data and map it to these fields in the new workspace:
Linear (old workspace) | Linear (new workspace) |
---|---|
Title | Title |
Description | Description |
Priority | Issue priority |
Status | Status or best match |
Labels | Added as a label |
While the import is limited to these fields, the importer is open source (contributions welcome) so it's possible to customize the CLI importer.
Other services
As long as you can export issues to CSV, it may be possible to use the existing CLI importer to migrate issues from services we do not currently support. You could customize the code or update a CSV export so the headers match the CSV headers for one of the already supported services. In these cases, using the Linear > Linear CLI importer will likely be more effective, so that you don't have to auto-generate content specific to other tools.
FAQ
Did we miss something? Have a question? Email us at hello@linear.app to let us know.