How can I migrate my existing push notification subscribers from another provider to Pushwoosh?

Yes, you can migrate your existing user base to Pushwoosh. The process is different for mobile app subscribers and web push subscribers.

Mobile App Subscribers (iOS & Android)

You can import your existing mobile subscribers by providing us with a list of their device push tokens. Mobile migration is handled by the Pushwoosh team — there is no self-service import for push tokens.

1. Prepare Your Data File

Create a .csv file containing your user data.
* Required: The only mandatory field is push_token.
* Recommended: Include timezone_id if you plan to use the "Send by Timezone" feature.
* Optional: You can include columns for any Tags you want to assign to users. Please ensure these Tags are created in your Pushwoosh Control Panel before the import — CSV import does not create new Tags.

Important Notes for Mobile Import:
* Do not include data that the Pushwoosh SDK collects automatically, such as language_code, country, or device. The SDK will update this information when users open the app after the migration.
* Do not include provider-specific IDs from your previous service (e.g., player_id, onesignal_id). Pushwoosh generates its own unique Hardware ID (HWID) for each device.

2. Send the file to Pushwoosh

Contact Pushwoosh Support (or your Customer Success Manager) with a sample of your user base. We will validate the formatting and confirm that the migration is possible before importing.

Special Case — Firebase (FCM) for iOS: Since Pushwoosh uses the native Apple Push Notification service (APNs), you will need to export the native APNs device tokens from your Firebase project for your iOS users.

Web Push Subscribers

Directly importing web push tokens from another provider is not technically possible due to differences in encryption, payload formats and platform configuration between services.

However, you can seamlessly re-subscribe your existing users without them needing to see another permission prompt. Users who have already granted push notification permission on your website will be subscribed to Pushwoosh automatically when they next visit your site.

Steps to Re-subscribe Web Users:

1. Completely remove the SDK, service worker file and all related code from your previous push notification service from your website. You cannot run two different web push SDKs on the same site.
2. Configure the web platform in the Pushwoosh Control Panel and integrate the Pushwoosh Web SDK (web-push-notifications) into your website.
3. During the SDK initialization, either set the autoSubscribe: true parameter (this is the default) or call the Pushwoosh.subscribe() method in your code.

After completing these steps, your web subscriber count in Pushwoosh will grow as your audience returns to your website. The re-subscribe rate depends primarily on how active your users are.