Every move between work tools loses something. The teams that regret a move are the ones who found out what after they switched. This guide covers moving a ClickUp List into Kavanah with a CSV: what to check before you export, which columns are read, what is left behind, and how to run the old and new tools side by side while you check.
1. Check Your Plan's Export First
Not every ClickUp plan exports the same way. In the plan table ClickUp was testing on October 25, 2026, List view exports were not included on Free and were a trial on Core, and Table view exports started on Business; the other table lists Custom Exporting on Business. Find out what your plan allows before you commit to a date, and export one List as a test before you plan the rest.
2. Match the Header Row
Kavanah's importer recognises columns by name. A task's title comes from a column called Task name, Task, Name, Title or Summary; its description from Description, Details or Task description, with Notes as a fallback. It also reads Status, Priority, Assignee or Assignees, Due date, Tags, a Checklist or Subtasks column, Comments, and an Attachments or Links column of URLs. Open your export, check the header row against that list, and rename any column that is spelled differently. Where a header appears twice, the first one wins.
3. What Changes on the Way In
Imported into a new project, each distinct status becomes a column on the new board, and assignees are matched to members by email or name; anyone who has not joined yet stays on the task as plain text, so invite people first or reassign after. Priorities fold from four levels to three: urgent and high both become High, normal becomes Medium, and low becomes Normal. Only the first tag on a task is kept. A due date the parser cannot read is left blank, so spot-check dates after the import. Each import takes up to 1,000 rows and creates a project, which counts toward your plan's project limit.
4. What Stays Behind
A CSV carries tasks, not the Workspace around them. Attachment files stay in ClickUp; at most their URLs arrive as links. Custom fields, time entries, docs, whiteboards, chat history, automations and the Space and Folder structure are not imported. Keep the full export, keep ClickUp readable for a period you choose, and note in each imported project's description where the old record lives.
5. Pilot Beside ClickUp
Before you move everyone, run one team in Kavanah for two sprints. Kavanah's ClickUp connector lets its agent list your Spaces, Lists and tasks, create tasks and update a task's name, description, status or due date, with every write into ClickUp waiting for approval by default. A background sync indexes your ClickUp tasks so a new one can trigger an automation; it does not copy them into Kavanah, so the import is still the step that moves the work.
6. Rebuild What Matters
After the import, put each project into a folder where you had Spaces and Folders; Kavanah's folders are one level deep. Recreate the custom fields, recurring tasks and dependencies the team uses, rebuild the automations that mattered as rules, and move the docs people still open into the knowledge library by hand.
A move without regrets is mostly a list: what moves, what stays, and where the rest is kept. For the full comparison of Kavanah, ClickUp, Asana and monday.com, see our ClickUp alternative page.
