Password ManagerImport & Export

Import Data from LastPass

Use this article for help exporting data from LastPass and importing into Bitwarden.

Export from LastPass

You can export your data from LastPass from their web vault or from a LastPass browser extension:

To export your data from the LastPass web vault:

  1. Select the Advanced Options option on the left sidebar:

    Export from web vault |
    Export from web vault

  2. From the Manage your Vault section, select the Export option. At this stage, LastPass will send you an email to confirm the export.

  3. In your inbox, confirm the export, return to your LastPass web vault, and select the Export option again to complete export.

    Depending on your browser, your data will either be automatically saved as a .csv or printed to the screen in a .csv format:

    LastPass export |
    LastPass export

  4. If your data was printed to the screen, highlight the text and copy and paste it into a new export.csv file.

warning

Some users have reported a bug which changes special characters in your passwords (&, <, >, and so on) to their HTML-encoded values (for example, &amp;) in the printed export.

If you observe this bug in your exported data, use a text editor to find and replace all altered values before importing into Bitwarden.

To export your data from a LastPass browser extension:

  1. In the browser extension, navigate to Account → Fix a problem yourself → Export vault items → Export data for use anywhere.

    note

    If you're using an old version of the LastPass browser extension, you may instead need to navigate to Account Options → Advanced → Export → LastPass CSV File.

  2. Enter your master password to validate the export attempt.

    Depending on your browser, your data will either be automatically saved as a .csv or printed to the screen in a .csv format:

    LastPass export |
    LastPass export

  3. If your data was printed to the screen, highlight the text and copy and paste it into a new export.csv file.

Import to Bitwarden

Data must be imported to Bitwarden from the web vault or CLI. Data is encrypted locally before being sent to the server for storage.

note

Refer to this LastPass support article to learn what is and is not supported for export from LastPass. Please note that Bitwarden does not support importing files.

To import data to your vault:

  1. Log in to the web vault at https://vault.bitwarden.com, or https://your.bitwarden.domain.com if self-hosting.

  2. Select Tools from the top navigation bar.

  3. Select Import Data from the tools menu.

  4. From the format dropdown, choose a file format.

  5. Select Choose File and add the file to import or copy/paste the contents of your file into the input box.

    warning

    Importing does not check whether items in the file to import already exist in your vault. If you import multiple files or import files with items already in your vault, this will create duplicates.

  6. Select Import Data to trigger the import. If you are importing a password protected .json file, enter the password into the Confirm Vault Import window that will appear.

  7. After successful import, delete the import source file from your computer. This will protect you in the event your computer is compromised.

Additional items such as File attachments, Sends, trash, and password history will need to be manually uploaded to your vault.

To import data to your vault from the CLI, use the following command:

bw import <format> <path>
Text Copied!

bw import requires a format (use bw import --formats to retrieve a list of formats) and a path, for example:

bw import lastpasscsv /Users/myaccount/Documents/mydata.csv
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After successful import, delete the import source file from your computer. This will protect you in the event your computer is compromised.

Import troubleshooting

File size import limitations

Imports may be rejected for exceeding any of the following data limitations:

  • If your import has more than 6,000 items.

  • If your import has more than 1,000 folders.

  • If your import has more than 1,000 collections.

  • If your import has more than 6,000 item-folder relationships (e.g. a single item in 3 folders can be said to have 3 item-folder relationships).

  • If your import has more than 6,000 item-collection relationships (e.g. a single item in 3 collections can be said to have 3 item-collection relationships).

Field size import errors

The following error messages, typically received when attempting to import a .csv, indicate that an item in your import file has a specified value that exceeds the allowed encrypted character limit for its field type:

Cipher errors in the web vault |
Cipher errors in the web vault

To solve this issue, open the .csv file in a text editor or spreadsheet program and remove or reduce the character count of the offending item. Bitwarden won't import your .csv file until it is free of offenses. The contents of the error messages contain several pieces of pertinent data to help you identify the offending item. For example, in the above example:

  • [1] identifies the index number where the offending item is located, adjusted to match row numbering in most spreadsheet programs.

  • [Login] identifies the vault item type of the offending item.

  • "Facebook" identifies the name of the offending item.

  • Notes indicates the field (column) where the character limit is exceeded.

  • 10000 indicates the character limit allowed for that field (column).

    tip

    On import to Bitwarden, the character count of any given field is increased due to encryption, meaning that an 8000-character Notes field in your .csv will scale to 10,000+ characters when it comes into contact with Bitwarden, triggering this error. As a rule of thumb, character counts will grow between 30-50% when encrypted.

If you continue to have trouble locating the offending item using the data provided in the error, it may help to focus first on notes as these are frequently the cause of this error.

Maximum collections error

When importing Lastpass .csv exports to a free organization, you may observe the following error:

Free organization max collections error |
Free organization max collections error

This error occurs when the LastPass export contains three or more grouping values. The values in the grouping field are interpreted by Bitwarden as collections, however free organizations are limited to only two collections. The following .csv, for example, would cause this error:

url,username,password,totp,extra,name,grouping,fav
https://www.facebook.com/login.php,username,password,,,Facebook,Social,0
https://twitter.com/login,username,password,,,Twitter,Social,0
https://asana.com/,login,password,,,Asana,Productivity Tools,0
https://github.com/login,username,password,,,Github,Productivity Tools,0
https://www.paypal.com/login,username,password,,,Paypal,Finance,0
https://www.bankofamerica.com/,username,password,,,Bankofamerica,Finance,0
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To solve this issue, delete the grouping column and the grouping datum for each item, including the trailing comma, for example edit:

https://github.com/login,username,password,,,Github,Productivity Tools,0
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down to:

https://github.com/login,username,password,,,Github,0
Text Copied!

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