Skip to content

ADIF import and export

ADIF is the file every logbook program understands. You use it to bring an old log in, and to take this log somewhere else.

Click your callsign, then ADIF Import / Export.

The file Cloudlog accepts is .adi. An .adif from another program usually just needs renaming. There is a size limit, shown on the import page, which comes from the server. A huge log may need to be split, or the person who looks after the server can raise that limit.

Picture needed: adif-import.png ADIF Import / Export, on the Import tab. The station location dropdown and the row of switches should be readable. You do not need a file chosen.

Bringing a log in

Choose the station location these contacts belong to. That choice matters. Every QSO in the file is stored against it, the same as if you had logged them while that location was active.

Then decide the switches. The safe set, for a normal old log, is to leave them alone.

  • Import duplicate QSOs. Off, unless you know the file contains real second contacts that look like duplicates. On, and a second copy of the whole log will be inserted.
  • Use DXCC information from ADIF. Off, and Cloudlog works the country out from the callsign. On, and it trusts the country written in the file. Use that when you have already cleaned the file and you know the countries are right.
  • Always use login callsign as the operator. On, when you were the operator for the whole file and the file says otherwise.
  • Ignore station callsign. This one is marked as dangerous on the page, and it means it. On, Cloudlog imports every contact in the file even when the station callsign does not match the location you picked. Leave it off unless the file is a mixture and you have decided this location should have all of it.

The marks for LoTW, QRZ, Club Log, and HRDLog mean "this contact was already sent, do not send it again." Tick them when the file came from a log that had already been uploaded. Leave them off when this is the first time these contacts have been near those sites, or Cloudlog will think the job is done.

Press Upload and wait. At the end you get a count, and a note if some fields in the file could not be read. The contacts are still imported. The fields that failed are the ones to check.

Taking a log out

The Export tab writes an .adi of the active logbook. You can limit it to a date range, to contacts not yet sent to LoTW, or to satellite contacts.

There is a switch to mark the exported contacts as sent to LoTW. Only use that when you really are about to upload that file to LoTW yourself. If you only wanted a copy for safekeeping, leave the switch off, or Cloudlog will stop offering those contacts for upload.

Other Export Options, on the callsign menu, are the specialist files: KML for a map, a gridsquare file for DX Atlas, a SOTA CSV, and Cabrillo for a contest. They are exports of the log you already have. They do not replace the ADIF.