Importing from Linear

Moving from Linear? Connect your Linear workspace with a personal API key and Deckbell copies your issues straight from Linear: no export files needed.

You need permission to manage issues to import, and permission to create projects to import into new boards.

Get a Linear API key

1. In Linear, open Settings → Security & access.
2. Under Personal API keys, click New API key, give it a name such as Deckbell import, and give it read access.
3. Copy the key (it starts with lin_api_).

The key is only used while the import runs. Deckbell deletes it as soon as the import finishes or stops. You can also revoke it in Linear afterwards.

Start an import

You can start from two places:

• Settings → Import → Linear to import into new boards or any board.
• A board's ⋯ → Import issues → Linear to import into that board.

Then:

1. Paste your API key and click Connect to Linear.
2. Tick the teams or projects to import. Importing a team brings all of its issues; importing a project brings only that project's issues.
3. Choose where to put the issues:
   • A new board for each one: each team or project becomes a Deckbell board with the same workflow columns, in the same order.
   • Into an existing board: you choose which column each Linear status goes to.
4. Choose whether to import comments.
5. Click Next, check the statuses, and click Import.

Match the statuses

When you import into an existing board, every Linear status is listed with the column it will go to. Deckbell suggests a column with the same name, or else one of the same kind (backlog, to do, in progress, done or canceled). For each status you can pick a column, choose Create a matching column (added among the columns of the same kind), or Don't import to leave those issues out.

What gets imported

From Linear	In Deckbell
Title and description	Kept as written, with Markdown formatting.
Status	The column you chose (see above). Done and canceled issues keep their completion date.
Priority	Urgent, High, Medium, Low or No priority.
Estimate	The estimate, rounded to a whole number.
Assignee	Matched to a teammate by email address, then by name. Unknown people are left unassigned and listed in the report.
Creator	Matched the same way; otherwise the person who ran the import.
Labels	Labels the board doesn't have yet are created with Linear's colours.
Sub-issues	Stay under their parent issue.
Relations	Blocks and related links between imported issues.
Cycles	Become sprints on the board, with the same dates.
Comments	Up to 200 per issue, with their original date. Comments by people who aren't teammates show their name at the top.
Created date	Kept, and issues are numbered in the order they were created.

Each imported issue shows Imported from Linear · ENG-123 in its details, linked to the original issue.

Importing again

Run the same import again at any time, for example to bring over issues created in Linear while your team was switching. Issues that were already imported are skipped (the report says Already imported as WEB-12), and new boards are filled again rather than created twice.

The report

While it runs, the dialog shows how many issues have been read and created. You can close it and keep working. When it finishes, the report shows the boards that were filled, how many issues were created or skipped and why, comments, links and sprints brought over, new labels, and people who couldn't be matched. Recent imports are also listed under Settings → Import.

Limits

• One import brings over up to 10,000 issues. Run it again to continue.
• Attachments and images inside descriptions stay as links to Linear.
• Links to issues that weren't part of the import are left out.
• Your plan's limits apply: on the Free plan, the import stops when the workspace reaches its issue limit (the rest are listed as skipped), and cycles aren't imported because sprints are part of the Pro plan. See Plans & billing.
• Only one import from Linear can run in a workspace at a time.