Airtable Recycler

🔄 How to Restore Your Airtable Base from a ZIP Archive

If you've exported your Airtable base using our tool, here's how you can restore it step-by-step.

⚠️ Important: Airtable doesn't currently support full base imports via a single upload. But you can recreate your base table-by-table using the files in your ZIP archive.

📁 What's in your ZIP

Your archive includes:

  • /tables/TableName.csv → Table data (can be imported directly)
  • /tables/TableName.json → Full records in JSON format
  • /tables/TableName.md → Markdown summary with field list
  • /attachments/ → Your files, grouped by table
  • README.md → Overview of what's included

✅ Step-by-Step: Manual Restore

1. Create a New Base in Airtable

2. Import Each Table

  • Open your ZIP and go to /tables/
  • For each table:
    1. Open Airtable and click "+ Add table"
    2. Choose "Import a spreadsheet"
    3. Upload the .csv file for that table

This will recreate the table and its contents.

3. Check and Adjust Field Types

  • By default, Airtable may guess column types (e.g., text, number)
  • Open the corresponding .md file (markdown) to see the original field names and types
  • Manually update each column to match (Single line text, Attachment, Linked record, etc.)

4. Restore Attachments (Optional)

  • Go to the /attachments/ folder in your ZIP
  • Find the files for each table and match them by record ID and field name
  • Drag and drop files into Airtable where needed

You can also host files online and paste their URLs into an "Attachment" field.

🛠 Advanced: Use Airtable API for Scripted Restore (Optional)

If you're technical or have a developer helping you, you can automate the import process using:

  • /tables/*.json for structured records
  • /attachments/ with hosted file links
  • The Airtable API + a script

Let us know if you need help with this — we can guide you or send a prebuilt restore script.

🧠 Pro Tips

  • Use "Link to another record" fields to re-establish relationships between tables
  • Use "Multiple attachments" if you have more than one file per cell
  • Always test the restore on a new empty base first to avoid overwriting live data

Need Help?

If you're stuck or want us to walk you through it, just email us at support@konanx.com. We're happy to help.

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