How to Migrate from Airtable to Notion

Updated: August 5, 2026

Moving a straightforward Airtable base to Notion does not require a dedicated migration tool. Airtable can export your records as CSV files, and Notion can turn each CSV into a database. With a bit of cleanup in between, this works well for contacts, inventories, content calendars, and other mostly tabular data.

The catch is that CSV stores values, not database behavior. It will not carry over Airtable views, formulas, linked-record relationships, automations, or the files behind attachment links. You can still migrate these parts, but you will need to rebuild or upload them in Notion after the initial import.

Airtable and Notion also use different names for similar concepts: an Airtable table becomes a Notion database, a record becomes a database page, and a field becomes a database property.

What moves cleanly

Standard field values usually make the trip with little work. More advanced features need manual attention.

Step 1: Prepare your Airtable base

Before exporting anything, make a quick inventory of your base. List its tables and note which ones contain attachments, linked records, formulas, lookups, or rollups. Take screenshots of any views, filters, groups, and sorts that you want to recreate later.

For each table, create or select an unfiltered grid view. Remove filters if you want every record, and make sure every field you intend to migrate is visible. Airtable exports the records and fields visible in the selected view—not the entire base as one file.

It is also worth keeping an untouched copy of every CSV you download. Do your cleanup in duplicate files so you always have the original export to return to.

Step 2: Export each Airtable table as CSV

Open the grid view you prepared, click the arrow next to the view name, and select Download CSV. Repeat this for every table you want to move. Airtable does not export a whole base as a single CSV, so a base with five tables will produce five files.

If a table contains attachments, its CSV will include file names and temporary URLs rather than the attachment files themselves. Airtable recommends downloading those files promptly because CSV attachment links expire after a short time.

Step 3: Clean up the CSV files

Open a working copy of each CSV in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers. Most exports need only a little massaging:

• Choose a useful title. Put the field that best identifies each record—such as Name, Project, or Company—first.
• Use unique headers. Every column should have a short, distinct name.
• Standardize dates and numbers. Avoid mixing text, numbers, and dates in the same column.
• Preserve linked-record names. Keep these columns for reference even though Notion cannot create relations from a new CSV import.
• Keep calculated values if useful. Formula, lookup, and rollup results can remain as static values until you rebuild their logic in Notion.
• Save as UTF-8 CSV. This helps prevent names and other text from importing as garbled characters.

If your file is too large to import, split it into smaller CSV files with the same header row. Notion currently accepts CSV files up to 5 MB on the Free plan and 50 MB on paid plans.

Step 4: Import each CSV into Notion

In Notion, go to Settings → Import → CSV. You can also open a page, type /csv, and select the CSV importer. Upload one of your cleaned files, choose where it should live, and create a new database.

Map each CSV column to the appropriate Notion property. Check that your record-name column becomes the database's Title property. If Notion guesses a type incorrectly, import the column as Text rather than risking changed values; you can convert or rebuild it after checking the data.

Repeat the process for the other tables. If your base contains linked records, import the referenced tables first. For example, import Clients before Projects if each project links to a client.

Step 5: Repair database features

Once the records are in Notion, compare each new database with its Airtable table and repair the features that CSV cannot represent.

Linked records

Create a Relation property in Notion and point it to the corresponding imported database. Then reconnect the records using the exported linked-record names as your checklist. When that relation is complete, recreate any dependent rollups.

Formulas, lookups, and rollups

The imported columns contain results, not Airtable's formulas or lookup configuration. Keep the static column until you have rebuilt and checked the Notion formula or rollup, then remove it if you no longer need it.

Attachments

Airtable attachment links do not turn into files in Notion. Download the original files while their export links still work, add a Files & media property in Notion, and upload the files to the matching records. Do not rely on the temporary URLs as a long-term archive.

Views and automations

Recreate the views, filters, sorts, and groups you documented before the export. Airtable interfaces, automations, scripts, field descriptions, comments, and revision history are not contained in the CSV and will need to be rebuilt or preserved separately.

Step 6: Check the migration

Before you stop using Airtable, compare the source and destination table by table:

• Count the records in every Airtable table and Notion database.
• Spot-check text, dates, numbers, select values, and empty fields.
• Open several relations from both directions.
• Check that attachments open from Notion rather than an expiring Airtable URL.
• Compare rebuilt formulas and rollups with their original Airtable results.

Keep in mind that importing or merging another CSV adds records; it does not update the rows already in Notion. Repeating an import can therefore create duplicates.

For a simple base, the CSV route is usually enough. For a heavily relational base, most of the work comes after the import: reconnecting records, rebuilding calculations, and moving attachments. Keep Airtable available until those checks are complete.

Once the migration is finished, make sure the new workspace has an independent backup. Notion Backups can automatically save your Notion pages and databases to the cloud storage provider of your choice.