Undo a mailing list import
Every list import bernard runs can be taken back. That is the point of doing it in one go under one identifier: the import is a unit, so it can be undone as a unit rather than hunted for row by row.
Where to find it
Community, the Email campaigns tab, then Bring your list from ActiveCampaign. Underneath is a short list of every import you have run, each with its date and what it was:
- report only, nothing imported for a dry run you never approved. There is nothing to undo, because nothing was written.
- imported, with Undo this import beside it.
- undone, for one you have already reversed.
What undo removes
Everything the import brought into being, and nothing else:
- The contacts it created. With their tags and their history on your site.
- The tags it added. Both your ActiveCampaign tags and the
list:tag it made from each list name. - The permission it recorded. The transferred-consent record on each contact, with the list name and date, goes with the contact it was written on.
You get a count back: how many contacts were removed, and how many do-not-email entries were kept.
What undo keeps, always
Every address the import put on your do-not-email list stays there. Permanently.
That is not a limitation we have not got round to fixing. It is the promise the whole importer is built around. Somebody who unsubscribed from you on ActiveCampaign said no to you. Bernard carried that no across, and a rollback of your import is not a reason to hand it back. If reversing an import could make an unsubscribed person reachable again, then the do-not-email list would be a suggestion rather than a fact, and nothing else on this page would be worth trusting.
You can read the kept entries any time. Who is on my do-not-email list, and why? shows where.
What undo does not touch
A contact who was already in your book before the import is left alone. The import recorded, address by address, whether it created that person or merely added to them, and the undo reads that record rather than guessing from a timestamp. So a customer of three years who also happened to be on your ActiveCampaign list does not vanish, and does not lose the tags they already had.
Anything that happened after the import is also left alone. If one of those imported people has since filled in a form on your site and confirmed it, that permission is theirs, given here, witnessed here. It is not the import's to remove.
Nothing is emailed, at any point
Not by reading your files, not by importing, not by undoing. Bernard sends no mail during any of it. The first email a person from your old list receives from bernard is a campaign you wrote, read and approved, with the recipient count in front of you and a Stop button running.
Undo, fix, import again
This is the intended way to recover from a mistake, and there is no penalty for using it:
- Undo the import.
- Fix the file. Usually a file labelled as the wrong status, or a missing unsubscribed export. Export my mailing list out of ActiveCampaign has the filters.
- Read the new report. What does my mailing list import report mean? takes it line by line.
- Approve it.
Because every suppression from the first run is still in place, the second run starts safer than the first did. That is the design working as intended.
If you want the people gone as well
Undo removes the contacts the import created, and that is usually what somebody means. If you also want the do-not-email entries erased, that is a different request with a different answer: those are records of somebody else's decision about your business, and What does bernard do with my data, and is it GDPR-compliant? covers what we do and do not remove on request, and why.
The prompt
“Undo the ActiveCampaign import I ran on [my site], and tell me exactly what it removed and what it kept.”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- Where is the undo button?
- Open Community, then the Email campaigns tab, then Bring your list from ActiveCampaign. Every import you have run is listed at the bottom with the date it ran, and an imported one has Undo this import beside it.
- Is there a time limit?
- No. An import can be undone at any time, not just on the day you ran it. The list will not stay identical to what it was, because new people keep arriving on your site, but the undo only ever touches what that one import created.
- Why are the unsubscribes still there after I undo?
- Because a no is not yours to take back. Somebody who unsubscribed from you on ActiveCampaign said no to you, not to a spreadsheet, and no rollback of an import reverses that. It is the single rule that makes handing us your list safe.
- Will it delete a contact I already had?
- No. The import recorded, one row at a time, whether it created each contact or found them already there. Undo only removes the ones it created, with their tags and their permission. A contact you already had keeps everything, including a tag the import added, because that tag is on a record that is not the import's to unmake.
- Does anybody get emailed by an undo?
- No. Nothing about an import, a report or an undo sends a single email. The first bernard email anybody from your old list gets is a campaign you wrote and approved yourself.
- Can I undo, fix the files and import again?
- Yes, and it is the intended way to fix a mistake. Undo, correct the file, read the new report, approve it. Anybody who was suppressed the first time stays suppressed throughout, so a second run cannot undo the safety of the first.
- Can Bernard undo it for me in the Workshop?
- Yes, and it follows the same rules: it is the account owner's to decide, so a team member is asked to pass it on, and Bernard names the import and what will be removed before it asks for your approval.