PulseMoving notes from another account
How to import notes from an old account into a new one, and the limits of doing so.
When you change email address, or want to bring a personal account and a work account together, you can import the notes from the old account into the one you use now. This article explains the steps, what is not imported, and what to check when it does not work.
What this does
Importing notes moves all the meeting notes and transcripts from one Pulse account to another. Where notes older than 31 days have stopped being shown on the free plan, those hidden notes move too. There is no need to upgrade the old account in order to import.
Use it in situations like these.
- You have switched to a new email address.
- You are moving from a personal account to a work account (or the other way round).
- You are bringing two accounts together.
Once the import finishes, not a single note remains in the old account. You cannot use it to view the same notes from both accounts. Check before you run it.
When it cannot be used
| Situation | What to use |
|---|---|
| The same email address, with several workspaces in use | Moving notes between workspaces |
| You want to import from another service (Notion, Apple Notes, Google Docs and the like) | Not supported by this feature |
| The source and destination have the same email address | No import needed. The account is the same, so the notes stay as they are |
Because the verification code is sent to the old account's email address, the two accounts must have different email addresses.
Before you start
- You must be signed in to the account you are importing into.
- You must be able to get into the inbox of the old account's email address. The verification code arrives there.
- This is done in the desktop app (macOS and Windows). The web version has no settings screen.
- Imported notes go into whichever workspace is open when you start. Switch to the workspace you want before beginning.
The import steps
Open the destination workspace
Sign in to the destination account and switch to the workspace you want the notes in.
Open Profile in settings
Click your workspace name at the bottom left to open Settings, then choose Profile in the settings menu.
Start the import
Account management section and click Import notes from another account → Import.
Enter the old email address
Enter the old account's email address and submit it.
Enter the verification code
A verification code arrives in the old address's inbox. It expires 10 minutes after it is sent. Entering it confirms you own the old account.
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Once confirmed, the import starts automatically. When it finishes, no notes remain in the old account.
You can request a new code 10 minutes after the last one was sent. Entering the wrong code repeatedly locks retries for up to about an hour.
- The old account's notes are in the destination workspace
- Signing in to the old account shows no notes at all
- If you use paid features, you have taken out a subscription on the destination workspace
What does not come with it
The subscription — a paid subscription stays with the old account. After importing, open Settings > Billing on the destination workspace in the new account and take out a new subscription. Without one, paid features including transcription are unavailable. Once the old account's subscription is no longer needed, cancel it there. How long you can use it after cancelling is covered in About cancellation.
Shared folders — a folder you are the only member of (with nobody else joined or invited) is imported into the destination workspace along with the notes inside it. A folder shared with others is not imported. The notes inside it do move, but they arrive detached from the folder, so you will need to reorganise them on the new account. Folders move on the same basis as in Moving notes between workspaces.
Templates and recipes — these do not carry over. Recreate them on the new account. How to create them is in Shaping notes with templates and Recipes (standing instructions).
Before running it in a Japanese organisation
Notes created for work contain clients' names, what was said, and how internal thinking developed. Importing from a work account into a personal account can in substance amount to taking business information out of the company.
- Check what your internal information-management rules say about taking business data out.
- Where you are moving notes because you are leaving or changing teams, get approval from your manager or IT department before running it.
- Administrators who want to prevent this can disable it in the workspace settings. See the next section.
Moving notes cannot be undone. If it turns out afterwards that the information should not have been taken out, there is no feature for returning it to the original account. If you are unsure, check with the relevant team internally before running it.
Administrator controls
Whether this feature is available is determined by the settings of the workspace you are importing from. On the Team and Enterprise plans it may be disabled by default.
In the source workspace, go to Settings > Workspace > General > Data export permissions and set these in order.
- Allow notes to be moved to another workspace — enable this. It is the prerequisite. How to open it and where it is on screen are covered in Moving notes between workspaces.
- Allow notes to be moved to another account — enable this. It cannot be changed until 1 is enabled.
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If you are an administrator of that workspace you can enable them yourself. If someone else administers it, ask them. The full list of settings is in Workspaces.
If something is not working
Q. The import item is not in the settings screen
A. Data export permissions may be disabled on the source workspace. Ask an administrator of that workspace to enable the two settings under Settings > Workspace > General > Data export permissions. The second cannot be changed until “Allow notes to be moved to another workspace” is enabled. Note too that this feature is desktop-app only.
Q. The verification email does not arrive
A. Check the “Promotions” and “Social” tabs of your mail service and your spam folder. On a work address, an internal mail gateway may have quarantined it, so checking the quarantine folder is worthwhile too. You can request a resend 10 minutes after the last one was sent.
Q. I have not created the destination account yet
A. The import starts from being signed in to the destination account. Where you have not yet created an account on the new email address, sign out, sign in with the new address and create the account, then start the import. Adding and switching workspaces is a different operation; this feature works only between accounts on different email addresses.
Q. I cannot get into the old email address
A. Being able to get into the old address's inbox is essential for confirming you own it. For security there is no alternative means of confirmation. Where a work email address is due to be shut off because you are leaving, complete the import before that happens.
Q. The imported notes are not in the workspace I wanted
A. The import runs against whichever workspace was open when you started. To move them to another workspace, you can move them all at once using Moving notes between workspaces.
Q. Paid features stopped working after the import
A. The subscription is still on the old account. Take out a new one from Settings > Billing on the destination workspace in the new account. Cancel the old account's subscription if you no longer need it.