Import and export

Imports and exports live in Settings → Import and Settings → Export. Both are for a location’s owners and admins, run in the background on the server, and need a connection. For moving a whole server, or a household between servers, see also moving to a new server.

Importing

Settings → Import asks where it comes from:

Source	What it is
A spreadsheet (CSV)	One thing per row, with a header row naming the columns
A Homebox export	The ZIP from Homebox v0.26 or newer (Collection settings → Export)
A Kept export	A location exported from this Kept or another one

Every import is checked before anything is written: Check the import shows What the import will do, row by row, with the reason for anything it skips. Then it runs with a progress bar. You can leave the page; the import carries on, and Settings → Import shows how far it got. If it stops, Resume carries on from the last row. Cancel the import keeps what it already imported.

Running the same import again skips what it already brought in, so a re-run never makes duplicates. An archive (a ZIP) can be up to 5 GB. Imported things arrive confirmed, not in the Inbox.

A spreadsheet (CSV)

1. Choose the file, and the location it goes into: one you own or administer. A file takes at most 10,000 rows (8 MB); split a bigger one.
2. Match the columns. For each column, choose the field it goes to, including A type’s field… for your own type fields. One column must be the name: every thing needs one.
3. A few choices:
   • A place column like Garage > Shelf A makes the rooms and spots: choose the separator, and whether to Make the places the file names that don’t exist yet.
   • Where rows without a place go (Unplaced by default).
   • How dates are written (worked out from the file where it can), and the currency for rows with none.
   • Match the type column to your types by name, in any of Kept’s languages; off, the type is kept in the notes.
4. Check the import, read the report, and import.

A Homebox export

Kept reads Homebox’s own export ZIP, which holds everything, including the files. In Homebox, open Collection settings → Export and download the ZIP; a Homebox older than v0.26 has no export, so update it first.

If Homebox says “Topic has been Shutdown”

Homebox v0.26 makes one export each time it starts. Restart Homebox and export again.

After the upload, Kept shows the collection and its export date. It goes into A new location or A location you run, where things already there stay and a re-run adds only what’s new. Connect to Homebox (optional) reads the collection’s currency, which the ZIP doesn’t carry: give Homebox’s address and an API key, or an email and password. They’re used once and never stored. Then choose:

• Prices are in: the currency. Choosing one relabels the amounts; it doesn’t convert them.
• Archived items: Leave out, or Import, tagged “Archived in Homebox”.
• Add an “Insured” yes/no field, and Leave out Homebox’s starter places and tags (the eight rooms and six tags every new Homebox collection starts with, when they’re unused).
• Custom fields: for each, Add to the type or Keep in notes.
• Types: match each Homebox type to a Kept type, or create it.

What comes over:

Homebox	Kept
Collection	One location
Locations (nested)	Rooms and spots, keeping the tree
Items	Things; an item holding others becomes a box
Manufacturer, model, serial	Brand, model, serial
Purchase date, shop and price	A purchase with its shop
Warranty, lifetime warranty	A warranty
Sold details	The thing ended as sold, with its date, price, buyer and notes
Tags	Tags with their colours (nested tags flattened)
Photos, manuals, receipts, warranty files	Photos, manuals, the purchase’s receipt, the warranty’s document
Completed maintenance	Service records
Scheduled maintenance	One-off schedules
Templates	Account templates, as far as they map

Notifiers, members and roles aren’t imported. Where a module is off in the location, that record’s text is kept in the thing’s notes.

Old labels keep working. Each Homebox asset ID (000-001) is remembered. Kept’s scanner recognises a Homebox label and opens the imported thing; if you point the old Homebox hostname at Kept, scanning with the phone’s own camera works too.

A Kept export

A Kept export always comes in as a new location, with its things, places, files, condition reports and history. If it holds secret values, Open the secrets with the passphrase chosen when it was exported; without it, everything else is imported. People to invite lists who shared the location; nobody is invited by the import, so invite each person yourself.

Condition reports come back with their days, notes, rooms and photos, and each photo keeps the time Kept first received it. A finished report comes back finished at the same time, and stays locked. On the new server, the photos and the finish are under the name of the person who imported them; the history still shows who did each thing before the import.

An export made by a newer Kept than the server you import into may be refused: update that server first.

A vehicle’s LubeLogger history

On a vehicle’s Overview, Import from LubeLogger takes the CSV that LubeLogger exports for one vehicle: its fuel, its service records (repairs and upgrades too) or its odometer readings, one file at a time. Kept reads the file, says which kind it is and guesses how dates and decimals are written (LubeLogger writes them in its server’s language); change either if the guess is wrong, and say whether fuel is in litres or gallons. Check shows what would be added and which rows can’t be, and why; Import adds them, oldest first, with their odometer readings. Importing the same file again adds nothing. Owners and admins of the location can import.

Search words after an import

When an AI provider is connected, the end of an import can offer Add search words with AI?, with an estimate of the tokens it takes. It runs in the background and adds aliases in the location’s languages, the way captured things get them (AI providers).

Exporting

Settings → Export has two kinds:

• Export a location, one you own or administer: every thing, place, photo, document and condition report is always in it.
• Export my data: your Personal location with its files, your profile and preferences, and your own AI calls.

What goes in besides: ended things (sold, given away, thrown out), the Trash, the history, the AI calls, and A copy you can read without Kept: web pages, spreadsheets, thumbnails and receipts that open in any browser, optionally with the inventory PDF, in a language of its own.

Include secrets is for the location’s owner. Secret values are encrypted with a passphrase of at least 12 characters, typed twice. Anyone with the file and the passphrase can read every secret in it, and Kept can’t recover a forgotten passphrase. The readable copy never holds secrets.

The export is built in the background; you’re notified when it’s ready. Each export stays in the list, ready to Download, for seven days.

Exports and backups

An export is something you take away: one location, readable anywhere, importable into any Kept. The server’s own nightly backup is separate and covers the whole instance; it also holds a readable copy of every location (backups). Deleting a location offers Export first.

Moving between instances

To move one household to another Kept server: export the location (with secrets if you need them), then import the ZIP there as a Kept export. Printed labels keep working: a label keeps its code when that code is free on the new server, and when it isn’t, the old label still opens the thing. To move a whole server with every account, use a backup instead. Both ways are in moving to a new server.