carto-import-export-data

carto import

carto activity export

When to use this skill

• The user has a CSV / GeoJSON / Shapefile / GeoParquet file and wants it queryable in the warehouse.
• The user wants to refresh an existing table from a remote URL.
• The user wants to render a 10M+-row spatial dataset on a map (needs tileset preparation).
• The user is bulk-exporting CARTO activity data to disk for offline analysis.

carto-query-datawarehouse

carto-explore-datawarehouse

Quick reference

# Import a local file
carto import --file ./data.csv \
  --connection carto_dw \
  --destination project.dataset.table

# Import from a URL
carto import --url https://example.com/data.geojson \
  --connection carto_dw \
  --destination my_project.demo.regions

# Async (return immediately, poll separately)
carto import --file ./big.parquet \
  --connection carto_dw \
  --destination my_project.demo.huge \
  --async

# Overwrite existing table
carto import --file ./data.csv \
  --connection carto_dw \
  --destination my_project.demo.t \
  --overwrite

What's in this skill

carto import

activity export

Always-on guidance

• --connection

  is the connection name (from

  connections list

  ), not the warehouse project ID. If you only know the project, run

  carto connections list --json

  first to find the matching connection.

• --destination

  is the fully-qualified target name in the warehouse's syntax:

  project.dataset.table

  (BigQuery),

  DATABASE.SCHEMA.TABLE

  (Snowflake),

  schema.table

  (Postgres/Redshift),

  catalog.schema.table

  (Databricks),

  SCHEMA.TABLE

  (Oracle).
• 1GB hard limit per file. For larger files, split or pre-stage to cloud storage and use

  --url

  to a presigned URL.

• --no-autoguessing

  skips column type detection — use it when you've prepared a precise schema and don't want CARTO to second-guess types (especially for columns that look numeric but should stay string, like ZIP codes).
• Imports are async at the API level. The CLI defaults to polling-to-completion; pass

  --async

  to return immediately. The CLI prints a job ID in async mode that you can use to check progress.
• For tilesets, the workflow is import → SQL job to materialize a tileset table → reference the tileset in a map. The tileset itself is created in the warehouse, not by the CLI.