How to Import Your Pilot Logbook to Skyden

Switching logbook apps feels risky. You’ve spent years building your flight records. Thousands of hours, hundreds of aircraft, every route and remark carefully logged. The last thing you want is to lose any of it.

Here’s the good news: you won’t. Importing your logbook into Skyden takes under 15 minutes, and your original data stays untouched in your current app. You’re copying, not moving. There’s zero risk of data loss.

This guide covers step-by-step migration from the most common sources: ForeFlight, LogTen Pro, CrewLounge PILOTLOG, FlyLog, and generic CSV files. Pick your source and follow along.

Before You Start

What you’ll need:

• Access to your current logbook app (or a CSV export file)
• Skyden installed on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac
• About 10-15 minutes

What gets imported:

• Flight dates and times (departure, arrival, block, flight time)
• Aircraft type and registration
• Departure and arrival airports
• Time categories (PIC, SIC, dual, instructor, night, IFR, cross-country)
• Remarks and endorsements
• Multi-crew and multi-engine time

What may need manual adjustment:

• Custom fields specific to your previous app (e.g., ForeFlight’s “Route” field formatting, LogTen’s custom categories)
• Approach types and counts (formatting varies between apps)
• Simulator entries (some apps categorize these differently)
• Digital signatures (these don’t transfer between apps and will need to be re-signed if required)

Importing from ForeFlight

ForeFlight exports your logbook as a CSV file through their web interface. The mobile app doesn’t support export directly, so you’ll need a browser.

Step 1: Export from ForeFlight

1. Open foreflight.com in a web browser and log into your account
2. Click Logbook in the top navigation
3. Click the Export tab
4. Click the blue Export button to download your CSV file
5. The file saves to your Downloads folder as a .csv file

Tip: ForeFlight also offers an auto-export feature that emails your logbook as a CSV every 30 days. You can enable this under Logbook > Settings > Export to Email. Useful for ongoing backups, but for a one-time migration, the manual export is faster.

Step 2: Import into Skyden

1. Open Skyden and go to Settings
2. Tap Import
3. Select ForeFlight as your source format
4. Select the CSV file you exported
5. Skyden automatically maps ForeFlight’s column headers to the correct fields. Review the preview to confirm everything looks right.
6. Tap Import to confirm

Because Skyden recognizes ForeFlight’s specific CSV format, column mapping is handled automatically. You shouldn’t need to manually assign any fields.

Importing from LogTen Pro

LogTen Pro exports flight data as a tab-delimited text file. The process happens within the LogTen app on your Mac or through the iOS share menu.

Step 1: Export from LogTen Pro

On Mac:

1. Open LogTen Pro
2. Go to Reports in the menu bar
3. Select Exporters
4. Choose Export Flights (Tab), not “Dynamic Export Flights (Tab),” which may omit some data
5. Save the .txt file to your computer

On iOS:

1. Open LogTen Pro
2. Navigate to Reports
3. Select the tab-delimited export option
4. Share the file via AirDrop to your Mac, or save it to Files

Important: Use the standard “Export Flights (Tab)” option, not the “Dynamic Export” variant. The dynamic export uses filtered data and may not include all your flights. The file name should contain “(Tab)”. This indicates it’s tab-delimited, which is what Skyden expects.

Step 2: Import into Skyden

1. Open Skyden and go to Settings
2. Tap Import
3. Select LogTen as your source format
4. Select the exported .txt file
5. Review the field mapping preview. LogTen’s column names map to Skyden fields automatically.
6. Tap Import to confirm

Importing from CrewLounge PILOTLOG

CrewLounge PILOTLOG supports CSV export through both its desktop app and web portal.

Step 1: Export from CrewLounge PILOTLOG

From the desktop app:

1. Open CrewLounge PILOTLOG
2. Navigate to the Query page
3. Leave all filter boxes blank and click Search to retrieve all flight records
4. Click the CSV icon button to export as a semicolon-delimited CSV file

From the web portal:

1. Log into My CrewLounge
2. Go to Apps/PilotLog
3. Find the Export Database section in the bottom-right corner
4. Download your data

Step 2: Import into Skyden

1. Open Skyden and go to Settings
2. Tap Import
3. Select PILOTLOG as your source format
4. Select your exported CSV file
5. Review the preview and confirm field mapping
6. Tap Import to confirm

Note: CrewLounge PILOTLOG uses semicolons as delimiters instead of commas in their CSV exports. Skyden’s PILOTLOG import mode handles this automatically, so you don’t need to convert the file first.

Importing from FlyLog

FlyLog supports CSV export from both its web app (app.flylog.io) and its desktop apps for macOS and Windows. Skyden recognizes FlyLog’s CSV format and maps the columns automatically.

Step 1: Export from FlyLog

1. Open FlyLog on web or desktop
2. Open your logbook and use the export option to generate a CSV of all flights
3. Save the file to your device

Step 2: Import into Skyden

1. Open Skyden and go to Settings
2. Tap Import
3. Select FlyLog as your source format
4. Select your exported CSV file
5. Review the field mapping preview
6. Tap Import to confirm

Importing from a Generic CSV

If you’re coming from any other logbook app, a spreadsheet, or even a digitized paper logbook, you can import using a generic CSV file.

Preparing Your CSV

Your CSV file needs column headers in the first row. Skyden can map most common column names automatically, but for the smoothest import, use headers like:

If you need a starting template, Skyden provides a CSV template with all supported columns pre-formatted.

Logbook data portability is a principle worth caring about. Your flight records belong to you, not to any app. Any reputable logbook app should let you export your complete data in an open format like CSV. If your current app makes it difficult to export your own data, that’s a red flag. When evaluating logbook apps, always check that you can get your data out as easily as you put it in. A CSV file is the universal currency of logbook data. Every app can read it, and no single vendor controls the format.

Step-by-Step Import

1. Open Skyden and go to Settings
2. Tap Import
3. Select CSV as your source format
4. Select your CSV file
5. Skyden will attempt to auto-map your column headers. Review each field mapping and adjust any that didn’t map correctly
6. Preview the imported flights to verify the data looks right
7. Tap Import to confirm

Dates: Skyden supports common date formats (YYYY-MM-DD, DD/MM/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY). If your dates aren’t parsing correctly, check that the format is consistent throughout the file.

Times: Both decimal hours (1.5) and hours:minutes (1:30) are supported. Again, consistency matters. Mixing formats in the same column will cause issues.

Verify Your Data

After importing, don’t just assume everything transferred correctly. Take 10 minutes to verify.

Check your totals. Compare the total flight hours in Skyden against your previous app. They should match within a few minutes. Small rounding differences (less than 0.1 hours) are normal and usually caused by decimal precision differences between apps.

Check your flight count. The number of flights in Skyden should exactly match your export. If flights are missing, check whether your export was filtered by date range.

Spot-check individual flights. Pick 5-10 flights across different time periods: your first flight, a recent flight, a few from the middle. For each one, verify:

• Date and route are correct
• Total time matches
• PIC/SIC/dual categorization is right
• Night and instrument time transferred correctly
• Remarks are intact

Check time categories. If you log night time, instrument time, or cross-country time, verify these transferred correctly. Different apps calculate night time differently. For example, some use the +30/-30 rule while others use actual civil twilight calculations. Small discrepancies in night time specifically are common and usually reflect different calculation methods, not import errors.

Troubleshooting

”My total hours don’t match”

The most common cause is rounding differences. Some apps store times as decimal hours rounded to one decimal place (1.5), while others use two decimal places (1.50) or hours:minutes (1:30). Over thousands of flights, small rounding differences compound. A discrepancy under 1 hour across 1,000+ flights is typically normal.

Less common causes:

• Timezone handling. If your departure and arrival are in different timezones, apps may calculate block time differently.
• Night time calculation methods. Different apps use different astronomical definitions. This affects night time totals specifically, not overall flight time.
• Simulator time. Some apps include sim time in totals, others separate it. Check whether sim entries were included in your export.

”Some flights are missing”

First, check whether your export was filtered by date range. Most apps default to exporting all flights, but some require you to explicitly select “All” rather than a recent date range.

Other causes:

• Date format parsing. If a few dates in your CSV use a different format than the rest, those rows may be skipped. Check for consistency.
• Encoding issues. If your CSV contains special characters (accented airport names, non-English remarks), save the file as UTF-8 before importing.
• Empty rows. Blank rows at the end of a CSV file can sometimes cause the parser to stop early. Open the file in a text editor and delete any trailing empty lines.

”Column mapping looks wrong”

If Skyden’s auto-mapping assigned a column incorrectly (for example, mapping your “SIC” column to “PIC”), you can fix this during the import preview step. Tap on any field mapping to manually reassign it to the correct Skyden field.

If your CSV has unusual column headers that Skyden doesn’t recognize, you can either:

• Rename the headers in your CSV file to match standard names (see the table above)
• Use the manual mapping interface to assign each column

If you’re stuck, contact support and we’ll help you sort it out.

Running Both Apps in Parallel

Here’s the approach we recommend: don’t delete your old app right away. Keep it installed and run both apps in parallel for at least a month.

During that month, log new flights in Skyden and verify that your workflow feels right. Check that the features you rely on are there. Make sure your imported data holds up as you use it alongside new entries.

Your first 20 hours are on us, with every feature unlocked. That’s enough flying for most pilots to thoroughly evaluate the app before committing to a subscription. There’s no pressure to decide immediately. Take the time to make sure it’s the right fit.

After a month of parallel use, if everything checks out, you can confidently make Skyden your primary logbook. And your old app’s data is still there as a backup if you ever want to reference it.

Key Takeaways

• Your data is safe. Importing copies your flights. It doesn’t delete them from your old app.
• It takes under 15 minutes. Export from your old app, import into Skyden, verify your totals.
• Skyden handles the hard part. ForeFlight, LogTen, and PILOTLOG formats are recognized automatically. Generic CSV works for everything else.
• Always verify after import. Check total hours, flight count, and spot-check 5-10 individual flights.
• Run both apps in parallel for at least a month before fully committing.

Thinking about switching but haven’t decided yet? Check out our comparison of the best pilot logbook apps to see how your options stack up. Or if you’re coming from ForeFlight specifically, our ForeFlight logbook alternative guide covers the differences in detail.

Ready to import? Download Skyden and bring your logbook with you. The free tier gives you everything you need to import your data and evaluate the app on your own terms. If you run into any issues during import, our support team is here to help.

Related reading

• ForeFlight Logbook Alternative: An Honest Comparison
• LogTen Pro Alternative: An Honest Comparison for Pilots
• Digital vs Paper Logbook: What Pilots Need to Know