• Important notes
• Version history
• Exported contents
• Exporting a project and its data
• Importing the project
• Rate limits

Project import/export

Existing projects running on any GitLab instance or GitLab.com can be exported with all their related data and be moved into a new GitLab instance.

The GitLab import/export button is displayed if the project import option is enabled.

See also:

• Project import/export API
• Project import/export administration Rake tasks
• Group import/export API

To set up a project import/export:

1. Navigate to Admin Area > Settings > Visibility and access controls.
2. Scroll to Import sources
3. Enable desired Import sources

Important notes

Note the following:

• Imports will fail unless the import and export GitLab instances are compatible as described in the Version history.
• Exports are stored in a temporary shared directory and are deleted every 24 hours by a specific worker.
• Group members are exported as project members, as long as the user has maintainer or admin access to the group where the exported project lives.
• Project members with owner access will be imported as maintainers.
• Using an admin account to import will map users by email address (self-managed only). Otherwise, a supplementary comment is left to mention that the original author and the MRs, notes, or issues will be owned by the importer.
• If an imported project contains merge requests originating from forks, then new branches associated with such merge requests will be created within a project during the import/export. Thus, the number of branches in the exported project could be bigger than in the original project.

Version history

The following table lists updates to Import/Export:

Projects can be exported and imported only between versions of GitLab with matching Import/Export versions.

For example, 8.10.3 and 8.11 have the same Import/Export version (0.1.3) and the exports between them will be compatible.

Exported contents

The following items will be exported:

• Project and wiki repositories
• Project uploads
• Project configuration, including services
• Issues with comments, merge requests with diffs and comments, labels, milestones, snippets, time tracking, and other project entities
• Design Management files and data
• LFS objects
• Issue boards
• Pipelines history

The following items will NOT be exported:

• Build traces and artifacts
• Container registry images
• CI variables
• Webhooks
• Any encrypted tokens
• Merge Request Approvers
• Push Rules
• Awards

Exporting a project and its data

1. Go to your project’s homepage.

2. Click Settings in the sidebar.

3. Scroll down to find the Export project button:

   

4. Once the export is generated, you should receive an e-mail with a link to download the file:

   

5. Alternatively, you can come back to the project settings and download the file from there, or generate a new export. Once the file is available, the page should show the Download export button:

   

Importing the project

1. The GitLab project import feature is the first import option when creating a new project. Click on GitLab export:

   

2. Enter your project name and URL. Then select the file you exported previously:

   

3. Click on Import project to begin importing. Your newly imported project page will appear soon.

Rate limits

To help avoid abuse, users are rate limited to: