Moving from Airtable
Airtable downloads each table as a CSV file. Put them in one spreadsheet, tidy four kinds of column, and the assistant builds the lists and the links between them, and brings your records in.
Out of Airtable
- A view with everything.
- For each table, open a grid view with no filters and every field shown: the download holds the fields visible in the view.
- Download CSV.
- Click the arrow beside the view’s name, then Download CSV, in Airtable on the web or its desktop app. An Airtable base does not download as one file; each table is its own CSV.
- One workbook.
- Open the CSVs in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice and put each on a sheet of one workbook, named after its table. Save it as .xlsx. A linked record becomes a link only when the table it points to is in the same workbook.
From Airtable’s support page on views, checked on 29 September 2026.
Tidy four kinds of column
- Several choices in a cell.
- Base Captain reads several choices separated by semicolons. If a multiple select column reads Wholesale,Delivery, replace its commas with semicolons: Wholesale; Delivery.
- Checkboxes.
- A ticked box reads yes, true, 1 or x, and an empty one stays empty. If the column says checked, replace that with yes.
- Dates.
- Dates are read as 2026-10-15, or in the date format of your own settings. For 10/15/2026, set Settings, Appearance, Date format to MM/DD/YYYY in your base before you import.
- Amounts.
- An amount with its currency sign, $1,200.00, is not a number yet: remove the sign. Thousands separators can stay.
We tried it with CSVs shaped as Airtable’s. Left as they were, no row came in: every row was reported with its reason. After these four changes every row came in but one: the project whose client was not in the Clients table.
Into Base Captain
From here it is the spreadsheet’s way in: open the assistant, drop the workbook in, apply the card with the lists and then the one with the import, and read the report.
Moving from spreadsheetsWhat becomes what
- Text, email, phone.
- Text fields; an email address column becomes an email field.
- Single select.
- A choice, its options the values in the column.
- Multiple select.
- A choice of several, once its values are separated by semicolons.
- Checkbox.
- Yes or no.
- Date.
- A date.
- Number and currency.
- A number, once the currency sign is gone.
- Linked record.
- A link to the other list, found by the linked record’s name in the other sheet. A name the other sheet does not have is reported, with its row.
- Attachment.
- Its files do not come over: the CSV holds each file’s name and a link that expires after a few hours. The assistant leaves the column out or keeps its text; upload the files you need again.
What does not come over
- Views and interfaces.
- The CSV holds records only. Ask for the lists, boards and calendars you use.
- Automations and permissions.
- Ask for the ones you need, in your own words (below).
- Comments and history.
- Airtable’s export leaves out record comments, and a record’s history starts again on the day you import it.
- Formulas.
- A formula field comes over as the values it showed. Add a computed field that works it out, or ask the assistant for one.
Then ask the assistant
- “Sales see only their own projects, and only managers see the budgets.”
- “Show projects on a board by status.”
- “When a project is done, email its client.”
- “A project over 5,000 needs a manager’s approval before it starts.”
Each comes as a card that says what changes, before it does.