Import Suppression Lists

To prevent adding invalid or stale addresses to your audience, you can import contacts as unsubscribed to create a suppression list. Suppression lists help you remain compliant with anti-spam laws and ensure that your marketing content reaches engaged recipients.

Each audience in your Mailchimp account is separate from the others, so your suppression list won't be global. You'll need to create a separate suppression list for each audience in your account.

In this article, you'll learn how to set up a suppression list from a CSV, TXT, or Excel file.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• If you want to mark existing subscribed contacts as unsubscribed, use the bulk unsubscribe tool. The suppression list process described in this article can’t mark existing contacts as unsubscribed or cleaned.

• Unsubscribed contacts count toward your monthly marketing contact limit if you created your account after May 15, 2019. To learn more about which contacts count toward your monthly contact limit, check out About Your Contacts.

Import a suppression list

To import a suppression list, follow these steps.

1. Click Audience.
2. If you have more than 1 audience, click the Audience drop-down and choose the one you want to work with.
3. Click the Add contacts drop-down and choose Import contacts.
4. Choose Upload a file.
5. Click Continue.
6. Click Select a file and choose the CSV file from your computer.
7. Click Continue.
8. Use the Current audience drop-down to confirm the audience you want to import to.
9. If your audience has groups, you can import your contacts directly into the group of your choice. Navigate to the Add to groups section and check the box next to each group that applies. You'll only see this option if you have groups in your audience.
10. If you want to update contacts that are already in your audience, check the box next to Update any existing contacts.
11. Click Continue.
12. If you want to assign tags to all of the contacts in your import, click the Search for or create tags drop-down. Select an existing tag or create a new tag. You can also choose from popular tags.
13. Click Continue.
14. Match the columns in your import file to the fields in your Mailchimp audience. We'll automatically match some columns for you. For example, the column that contains email addresses will match the required Email Address field. Any unmatched columns won't be imported.
15. Click Continue.
16. Use the Select email marketing status drop-down to choose Unsubscribed.
17. Click Finalize import to review your import settings.
18. Click Complete Import.

That's it! After the import is finished, we'll send a notification to the email address associated with your username.

To view your unsubscribed contacts at any time, create a new segment with these conditions: Email Marketing Status | is one of | Unsubscribed.