Import and export

Bring an existing .env file into a Keel environment and export an environment back to a .env file, including the supported syntax and limits.

Last updated 2026-10-11

Import moves an existing .env file into one environment. Export downloads one environment as a .env file. Both are in the secrets view, next to Add Secret.

Prerequisites#

Import needs secrets:create (and secrets:update if you choose to overwrite) in the environment.
Export needs secrets:read in the environment.

Import a file#

Select the environment you want to import into.
Choose Import and pick or drop a file named .env, .env.<name> or *.env. The file can be up to 256 KB and 500 variables.
Review the preview. The file is read in your browser and nothing is uploaded yet. Values are never shown. Each key is marked: - New: will be created. - Existing: already in this environment. Choose Skip (the default) or Overwrite. Overwriting creates a new version and keeps the old value in history. - Duplicate: the key appears more than once in the file. Choose first, last or skip. Import is blocked until every duplicate is resolved. - Invalid: bad line, bad key, empty value, or value over 10,000 characters. Reported with its line number and not imported.
Confirm. If you chose any overwrite, tick the acknowledgement.
Read the result summary: created, overwritten, unchanged, skipped and failed.

Import is dashboard-only. The server validates the whole request before writing anything, then each entry goes through the same create and update path as single secrets, so encryption, versioning and audit events are identical. Each entry records secret.created or secret.updated with import: true, and the batch records one secrets.imported event with the counts.

Supported syntax#

Form	Behavior
`KEY=value`	Optional `export` prefix and spaces around the key and `=`
Comments	Blank lines and lines starting with `#`. A `#` after an unquoted value starts a comment, but `a#b` keeps the hash
Unquoted values	Trimmed, no escapes
`'single quoted'`	Literal text, may span lines
`"double quoted"`	Escapes `\n`, `\r`, `\t`, `\\`, `\"`, `\'`, may span lines
Line endings	CRLF and a UTF-8 byte order mark are accepted

Not supported: variable expansion such as ${OTHER}, and empty values (KEY= is parsed but rejected because Keel requires a value).

Export an environment#

Choose Export and confirm.
The browser downloads .env.<environment>.

The file is generated in memory, streamed to you and not stored on the server. Values that contain anything other than A-Z a-z 0-9 _ @ % + = : , . / - are double-quoted and escaped, so importing the file again returns exactly the same values.

Each export is recorded as secrets.exported with the number of keys and format: dotenv.

Limits#

Limit	Value
Import file size in the dashboard	256 KB
Variables per import	500
Request size accepted by the server	2,000,000 bytes
Import rate	10 requests per minute per user
Export rate	30 requests per minute per user

Next steps#

See Integrations to push secrets to a deployment platform.