How to use mongoimport to import csv

Question

Your example worked for me with MongoDB 1.6.3 and 1.7.3. Example below was for 1.7.3. Are you using an older version of MongoDB?

$ cat > locations.csv
Name,Address,City,State,ZIP
Jane Doe,123 Main St,Whereverville,CA,90210
John Doe,555 Broadway Ave,New York,NY,10010
 ctrl-d
$ mongoimport -d mydb -c things --type csv --file locations.csv --headerline
connected to: 127.0.0.1
imported 3 objects
$ mongo
MongoDB shell version: 1.7.3
connecting to: test
> use mydb
switched to db mydb
> db.things.find()
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4d32a36ed63d057130c08fca"), "Name" : "Jane Doe", "Address" : "123 Main St", "City" : "Whereverville", "State" : "CA", "ZIP" : 90210 }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4d32a36ed63d057130c08fcb"), "Name" : "John Doe", "Address" : "555 Broadway Ave", "City" : "New York", "State" : "NY", "ZIP" : 10010 }

I was perplexed with a similar problem where mongoimport did not give me an error but would report importing 0 records. I had saved my file that didn't work using the OSX Excel for Mac 2011 version using the default "Save as.." "xls as csv" without specifying "Windows Comma Separated(.csv)" format specifically. After researching this site and trying the "Save As again using "Windows Comma Separated (.csv)" format, mongoimport worked fine. I think mongoimport expects a newline character on each line and the default Mac Excel 2011 csv export didn't provide that character at the end of each line.

We need to execute the following command:

mongoimport --host=127.0.0.1 -d database_name -c collection_name --type csv --file csv_location --headerline

-d is database name

-c is collection name

--headerline If using --type csv or --type tsv, uses the first line as field names. Otherwise, mongoimport will import the first line as a distinct document.

For more information: mongoimport

you will most likely need to authenticate if you're working in production sort of environments. You can use something like this to authenticate against the correct database with appropriate credentials.

mongoimport -d db_name -c collection_name --type csv --file filename.csv --headerline --host hostname:portnumber --authenticationDatabase admin --username 'iamauser' --password 'pwd123'

Check that you have a blank line at the end of the file, otherwise the last line will be ignored on some versions of mongoimport

I use this on mongoimport shell

mongoimport --db db_name --collection collection_name --type csv --file C:\\Your_file_path\target_file.csv --headerline

type can choose csv/tsv/json But only csv/tsv can use --headerline

You can read more on the offical doc.

Robert Stewart have already answered for how to import with mongoimport.

I am suggesting easy way to import CSV elegantly with 3T MongoChef Tool (3.2+ version). Might help someone in future.

1. You just need to select collection
2. Select file to import
3. You can also unselect data which is going to import. Also many options are there.
4. Collection imported

See how to import video