Importing Customer Metafields

[DRChevalier]

According to the Shopify Help documentation, not only can you create customer metafields but you can also use those fields as import fields when importing customers.  I cannot make this work.  I opened a ticket and was told that it would not work which is contrary to the documentation.  That ticket remains open with no activity over the last few business days.

If anyone has gotten this to work with the current (August 2024) release of Shopify, would you please share what you did and any tips you discovered to make it work?

Thank you kindly.

[blazeb2b]

from where are you importing the customers and metafields?

[DRChevalier]

The import is a CSV file constructed using the Shopify template extended with the metadata field headers as per Shopify online documentation.

[DRChevalier]

The source for the import is a CSV file based on the Shopify template.  The additional columns have been added and named as per the Shopify documentation to import customer metafields, but the import function says that they are invalid.

[PaulNewton]

Any such customer metafields for importing must already exist in the admin

and be a specific type

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/customers/import-export-customers#supported-metafields 

Also make sure the CSV itself is free of errors, otherwise be more exact with whatever error messages are showing and where and how.

[DRChevalier]

Hi Paul,

The customer metafields do exist in the admin.  I followed the instructions exactly to create the column headers in the import CSV using the data from the naming from the customer metafields exactly.  In this scenario, all the metafields are single line text which is supported per the link that you provided.  The failure occurs during the Preview phase of the import where it says that the fields do not exist, even though they do.

Thanks for trying to help

[PaulNewton]

Have you tried exporting then reimporting the exact CSV shopify gives when it includes metafields to check your syntax

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/customers/import-export-customers#supported-metafields:~:text=Opt... 

[DRChevalier · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

That's a good suggestion, I will do that and see what I learn, and update this post.

Thank you!

[DRChevalier]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the suggestion.  I discovered that the documentation was not completely clear.  Your idea gave me the full field names and the import worked as hoped.  

Thank you very much sir.

[JoelofArc]

I attempted to export my customers but the custom metafield did not export. Do you have any more info since you got it to work?

edit: Nevermind, I finally figured it out