Overview
Create or update hundreds of LearnDash users from a single spreadsheet — enrolling them in courses, assigning them to groups, setting custom profile fields, and emailing them their login details, all in one import.
The Import Users module turns a CSV file into LearnDash users. Use it to onboard a new cohort of employees or students, migrate records from another platform, or bulk-update existing users. A single import can create accounts, enroll users in courses and groups, set custom user meta, and send each person a welcome email with their account details.
The Four-Step Process
Step 1: Options
Set the defaults for the import: the role new users receive, which courses to enroll them in, and which groups to add them to. (Values in your CSV override these defaults per row.)
Step 2: Email Settings
Enable welcome emails and customize the template using tokens such as %Password% and %Reset Password Link%, so new users receive their credentials and a way to set their own password.
Step 3: Prepare Your CSV
Your file needs one column of user data per field. The only required column is user_email.
Supported columns:
| Column | Purpose |
|---|---|
user_email | Required. The user’s email address. |
user_login | Username (generated from email if omitted). |
user_pass | Password (generated if omitted). |
first_name, last_name, display_name | Profile name fields. |
wp_role | WordPress role, by role slug. |
learndash_courses | Course IDs to enroll the user in, separated by semicolons. |
learndash_groups | Group IDs to add the user to, separated by semicolons. |
group_leader | Assigns the user as a group leader. |
| (any other heading) | Saved as custom user meta. |
Delimiter support (v4.4): the importer now accepts comma, semicolon, tab, or pipe (|) delimited files and detects the delimiter automatically. You no longer need to convert a semicolon- or tab-separated export into a comma-separated file first — upload it as-is.
Step 4: Import Users
Upload your CSV and review the validation results. The importer previews what will happen so you can catch problems before committing, then confirm to run the import.
Limitations to Know
- Up to 1,000 users per import. Split larger lists into multiple files.
- Additive only for enrollments — the importer can add course/group enrollments but can’t remove existing ones.
- Can’t change usernames or email addresses of existing users.
- Can’t mark courses complete through import.
- Password hashes don’t transfer between sites — imported users on a new site will need to set a password (use the
%Reset Password Link%token in the welcome email).
Access
Import Users is restricted to site administrators for security reasons. Developers can extend access to Group Leaders via a custom filter.
Related Articles
- Enhanced LearnDash CSV Reports — Export richer user data back out of LearnDash
- Employee Training & Onboarding at Scale — Full org-onboarding workflow built around Import Users
- Group Registration — Let users self-register instead of importing them
I there a way for group leaders to be able to use this function?
Hi Manny,
Our Groups plugin has a very limited version of the CSV user upload function, but I’m afraid this particular module is restricted to admins only. In the hands of Group Leaders it would be very dangerous and confusing, unless we modified it heavily to only support groups and courses associated with the Group Leader’s access. Even then, we would probably need to restrict email capabilities.
We know there is value in adding more options like this for Group Leaders, like some level of customization for welcome emails, but I’m afraid that for now this remains an admin only module.
Hi Ryan,
We have a multisite WP and our site level admin cannot view the import user page. How to I let our site level admin to do the importing task? Thanks.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Import LearnDash Users module is currently incompatible with multisite installations. We’re looking into whether we can add support in the next release. I’ll update here when we’re able to make that determination.
Is there a way to use the password reset link rather than password in the email (%Password%)?
To force the user reset their password, you can remove the %Password% token from the email and instead instruct them to follow a link to the password reset page on your site.
can you automatically set users to ‘completed’ status when importing? For example if you are moving to learndash from a different platform and want your users who have already completed the course to also have access to the new LD course but don’t want them to have to go through and complete all modules again. thanks!
Unfortunately, that’s not currently possible with this module.
Where do you get the group ID from?
You can get the group ID by going to LearnDash LMS > Groups, clicking on a group, then looking at the URL in your browser. It should contain something like “?post=2011”. That number is the Group ID.
Hi,
I downloaded the sample csv.
Then i put text to columns, make some changes and save as csv.
i get an error when oploading that i do not have the required email field.
Thats because my csv is not seperated with , but with ;
How can i change this setting?
Because in your video you can upload the file with the csv set to columns.
I do not want my client to do al lot of unnecesary steps of find and replacing all ; with , and then paste in the first column.
Kind regards.
This issue, where the delimiter is something other than a comma, is usually caused by the language settings on your computer and you use Excel to create the file. Changing your language settings is one option, or you might try importing the file into Google Sheets instead where it’s easier to export using a commas as the delimiter.
Thank you for your fast reply.
I am going to try that.
Does the option “to update or ignore users that already exist on your website” mean that you can enroll users who already have a site registration into a course via CSV? We have LearnDash running as part of a WP website with registered users, who are not necessarily enrolled in a course. So the uploaded CSV would include registered site users, so the uploader would ignore the registration process for them and just handle the course enrollment. Is that correct?
Exactly correct. Note though that to update an existing user’s course/group access the CSV file MUST include both the current username and email address of that WordPress user. If either value doesn’t match, the update will be ignored.
Hi,
I want to transfert learndash course.
If I use this plugin to import the existing users from the site1 to the site B,
Could you tell me if the progress of the user are imported ?
Thanks
Regards
Ludovic
Hi Ludovic,
There is definitely no way (short of a fair bit of development work) to move progress records in LearnDash from one site to another. This module will let you import users and usermeta, along with course and group enrollments, but not anything related to progress or quiz data.
Do you provide any add-on or other thing to import course progress/status of % or else using the .csv file? Like we can assign course id and % so the status will update on a system or something like that?
Thanks!
Sorry, it’s definitely not possible. The complexity would be enormous; you can’t populate just a % complete, you would need to identify which specific lessons and topics to mark as complete to have LearnDash generate the % complete.
Having said that, with Uncanny Automator you can use import files in this module to mark things as complete (including courses). Have a look at https://automatorplugin.com/run-actions-on-wordpress-users-in-bulk/ for more info. Note though that the import rules would apply to EVERYONE in the CSV file, there isn’t a way you could mark different things complete for different users in the same file.
Hi, is there a way to import more than 1000 users at once?
You could potentially override it with code, but I wouldn’t even recommend uploading 1,000 users at once. This will push your server resources too hard, it’s a lot of emails to send at once, if you have a mistake in the import file it’s harder to fix, etc. Smaller batches are safer. The 1,000 limit we force isn’t a technical restriction, we added it so we don’t overload servers.
Thanks Ryan, I actually don’t need to send emails, I was just wondering because I’m only adding my existing WishList Member users from their respective levels to their respective courses on LearnDash, so I don’t need to send emails out, I already did some testing in my staging site and 1000 users are getting updated in about 2 minutes.
I have 6 levels with 6,700 users each, I would have to create 7X6=42 CSV files to accomplish my import, since I’m not sending out emails I figure I could push it to 4,000 per file perhaps? or even 3,000 would save me some time.
What I’m trying to do is some kind of migration withing the site, from WishList Member levels, to LearnDash courses.
Certainly you could modify the code to allow that. It’s not something we could support, and if it were me I would probably still go with the 42 imports. 🙂
Thank you Ryan, I will do the 42 imports then, I’m good at listening to what is suggested.
Thank you very much for the fast responses also, I’m a new customer of yours, I just bought the pro version 2 or 3 days ago I think.
Hi, is there a way to import users automatically every x hours, not manually ?
Sorry, that’s unfortunately not something that’s supported (or planned).
Hi there,
I’ve downloaded the .csv sample file that you’ve got up here and exchanged the information for my own. It seems as the plugin will only import the first user from my list, and not the rest. Can you please help me understand why it’s not working for me?
Thanks in advance,
Christine
Sorry Christine, for anything like this you must submit a ticket and we really need to see the CSV file. Check it in a text editor; maybe there’s an invalid leading or trailing space in a column, maybe there’s an extra record and it’s formatted incorrectly, it’s really too hard to say without seeing the file.
Hello,
We are having issues with the import. It can only do 10 users at a time per CSV file. We have over a thousand users to import. We are following the instructions to the tee. Any insights?
You should definitely file a support ticket for this one and let us know what’s happening. It could be low PHP timeouts in the environment, looping through too much data if you’re adding significant volumes of records on the LearnDash side, it could be something else entirely. On larger sites where we’re adding course and group mappings plus usermeta we typically expect to process about 250 users every 10 minutes. Let us know exactly what you’re seeing and what data you’re importing when you open the ticket.
Just wanted to double-check – when importing users when you do not want to send an email – if I do not check the email boxes on the import, I’m hoping that also means that they will not receive the standard WordPress “Add User” email. Is that correct?
It sounds like maybe you mean the notification when admins create a new user in /wp-admin/ and the box is checked to send a notification email? If so, that’s correct, that email is not sent. No emails would be sent.
Hi there,
I’m considering getting the Pro plugin and I have a few questions related to this:
1) When you import users that way, can the plug-in also add them at the same time to a Mailchimp or GrooveMail list, in the correct group, using groups/tags? How?
2) Can you send a Mailchimp/GrooveMail automation when that happens, in replacement of the automated email?
3) In that case in there a way to pass the variables (username, password)? Or would it have to be two different emails, once from the plugin and the automation from Mailchimp/GrooveMail?
4) What is the security level of this import feature? Plug-ins able to import are frequently compromise, so what are the measures preventing a third party from importing themselves with admin rights?
Many thanks!
Manni
Hi Manni,
Good questions, but I’m afraid what you want to do for numbers 1 to 3 isn’t something we could support. It would just be far too slow to communicate out to an external system and wait for a reply for every record. You could instead run the import, then use a plugin like WP Fusion to pass tags and other data to a CRM as a batch afterwards?
As for security, that’s exactly why our importer in Uncanny Groups (for Group Leaders) is so locked down compared to this importer in Toolkit Pro. This one is only available to admins, and yes, they can add whatever users and data they want, including new admin users. We make the assumption that since users that can run imports are admins, they can add whatever user data they want.
Hello, I know you answered this question previously but I thought maybe it’s been added since 3 years have passed. Can I import a list of users and automatically set their course as completed when transferring to a new site?
Thank you.
Sorry, we still don’t support marking things complete via import. The load on servers would be very significant so it’s not currently planned either.
Hi,
I would like tot grant acces to a “lower level” admin with the use of User Role Editor. I can see all my plugins, but unfortunually I don’t see anything ot grant acces to the import of users. While this user DOES already has permission to add users manually. Any way to add fix this? I can’t make them a real admin since then they also can access stuff like general settings, theme options etc.
Hi Wilco,
In the next release of Toolkit Pro we will include support for a custom “Toolkit – Import Users” role that can be assigned to users and that will allow uploads from /wp-admin/. If you want the changes in advance you’re welcome to open a ticket and we can provide them, otherwise we’ll have the support in the next public release.
Is there an upper limit of how many users you can import at one time?
Yes, the current limit is 1,000 per file. It’s possible to override this with a snippet, but to keep everything easier to manage (especially if there are errors) and performant, we do have that default limit.
Thanks for letting know.
Hi Ryan,
We have a multisite WP and our site level admin cannot view the import user page. How to I let our site level admin to do the importing task? Thanks.
This is definitely that we should look at in a ticket. When you open it, maybe you can confirm if the plugin is site or network activated, what role the user has and whether role capabilities have been modified (I believe this requires manage_options).
hello, is there any way to overwrite users but now enrolled in courses? I’ve tried and it won’t let me.
Hi, you can add new course enrollments via import, but if you mean you need to remove people from existing courses, the import won’t support it. There are several ways to modify and add data to users with the import tool, just not remove existing records.
(There are potentially options via Uncanny Automator and https://automatorplugin.com/run-actions-on-wordpress-users-in-bulk/ though if you really need to trigger removals.)
Is there any way we can automate the csv file upload process to do bulk user profile and their courses/groups update?
Hi Kevin, so the upload would replace existing records and mappings rather than just add things? If there’s custom user meta in the upload the values would be replaced, and for more control over removing some things during upload you could use Uncanny Automator recipes to do additional processing. Otherwise though no, you can’t remove course and group mappings in an upload.
I want to import a user via csv but I don’t want them to be added to a group. I just want them be added with a specific course, is this possible
Absolutely. All columns are optional except the email columns, so you can leave the learndash_groups out of the CSV file and not select any groups from the Options tab.
Hi Just a follow up question, when i go to unselect a group from the options tab the last group I imported is selected in the options tab, how do I unselect this as it doesn’t seem to allow me to do this, its like I have to choose a group.
You should be able to use the CTRL key while clicking on Windows or Command key on Mac to unselect something that’s already been selected, but let us know if you run into any trouble.
Hola, Tengo una duda como se si ya los usuarios que estoy asignando a un cursos tienen una contraseña establecida, osea tengo muchos y no se cuando sean nuevos o no quiero hacer que si son nuevos la contraseña no se actualice y llenar el excel con los datos de contraseña general pero que los nuevos no se genere nueva contraseña si no que quede la misma
The module will create users that don’t exist and update users that don’t exist. If a user exists, a password field will be ignored and it will not be changed for the user. Similarly, if a matching email is found but the username is different, nothing will happen to the username; the import cannot update username records.
Hey Ryan,
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I have a couple of questions based on the YouTube Video, I understand that it may be a little dated, so thought it better to double-check with you.
1. What is the recommended number of Users to be imported at one time? On the video you mention only 100, or at tops 200, please can you confirm the best practice.
2. You mention an issue with emails being sent when importing Users and adding them to courses. Please can you clarify the best practice to ensure emails are sent when Users are added?
Thank you
Dave
Hi Dave,
For #1, it really depends. The hard limit in our code is 1,000 rows. In practice, we generally limit things to about 250 ourselves. If you’re running Automator recipes against imported users and/or mapping to a lot of groups on import, we might even suggest lower than 100.
For #2 you shouldn’t see any issues, but this may be a consideration if you use your web host for sending emails (vs. a transactional email service like Sendgrid, SES, Mailgun, etc.). In some cases your host or mail provider might limit the number of outgoing emails that are allowed, but you’d have to confirm with your provider.
i want to move users from one site to anathor
i try the plugin … and it works … but i can’t find a method to transfer the “original passwords”
is there an option to do that?
Sorry Thamer, that is not possible. WordPress stores hashed versions of passwords, never passwords in plain text. It is not possible to retrieve and reuse passwords with the plugin.