Adding more rows(skipping already added data) while using importing new CSV

Feature Ideas
#1

Hi

Let me try to explain giving an example.

I made a table in baserow and imported data from Airtable.
It has 2 coulmns and 3 rows

Name Date of birth
John 22/1/1990
Doe 1/11/1999
Molly 2/3/1996

Now my list in airtable got updated to 5 rows.

Name Date of birth
John 22/1/1990
Doe 1/11/1999
Molly 2/3/1996
Simon 4/2/1994
Michael 7/3/2000

When i imported the new CSV it did not skip the already added rows and now the total number of rows became 8 instead of being 5.

Is there any way to avoid adding row that that already exits? Can a primary field be defined which be used to match the existing and New data(if data is primary field matches in old and new row then skip the import of that row).

#2

Hello @verifybudi, thanks for sharing your feedback :slightly_smiling_face:

Tagging @jrmi here if he has any feedback/ideas on this.

#3

There is no easy way to do that currently. For now, the purpose of the import is more to initialize/increment a database than to synchronize it with a file.

Your options here are:

  • Empty your table before importing
  • Filtering out the added rows in your CSV file with an external tool
  • you could also use a workflow automation tool like n8n, Make or Zapier
  • or ultimately you can copy&paste the missing lines manually, but I guess you want something a bit more automatic and brainless?

Do you plan to use this feature with generated file from another tool or with a manually edited file?

I’ve created an issue to track this feature request.

#4

I use 2 methods.

Import already downloaded CSV with latest version (including old and new rows)

and

Trying to import Airtable Import feature (trying manually SYNC airtable to the selfhosted baserow)

No brainer solution is the best . Skipping overwriting i recall i saw in Grist database.