The main thing stopping people from leaving Splitwise is not the app. It is the two years of rent, bills and grocery runs with their flatmates sitting inside it. Nobody wants to retype that, and nobody wants to explain to four flatmates why the balances suddenly reset to zero.
You do not have to. Splitwise lets you export any group, and Splitify reads that export directly. Here is the whole process, which takes about three minutes per group.
On this page
Step 1: Export
Splitwise has a built in export that produces a spreadsheet of every expense in a group, with dates, descriptions, amounts, who paid, and each person's share.
- Open the group you want to move.
- Tap the settings or gear icon for that group.
- Look for Export as spreadsheet or Export group data.
- Splitwise generates a CSV file and gives you a share sheet or emails it to you.
Do this for each group you care about. You do not need to export the ones that are settled and dead, though it costs nothing to bring them over for the record.
Do I need to settle up first?
No. The export contains the full expense history, so whatever anyone still owes is preserved in the data.
Step 2: Import
There are two ways in, and they end up in the same place.
From the share sheet
When Splitwise hands you the export, pick Splitify from the share menu. The app opens on the import screen with the file already loaded. This is the quickest route on Android.
Or pick the file
If you already saved the export, or it arrived by email, open Splitify, go to Import from Splitwise, and choose Select File. Point it at the CSV or Excel file wherever you saved it.
Splitify reads CSV and Excel exports. If your file came through email as an attachment, download it first so the file picker can see it.
Step 3: Map contacts
This is the step that actually matters, and it is the one people rush.
The export has names in it, not phone numbers. "Priya S" in a Splitwise group is just a string. Splitify asks you to match each name to a contact on your phone, so that the person in your new group is a real, reachable account rather than a label.
Go through them one at a time and give every person a real phone number. If someone is not in your contacts, get their number before you finish the import rather than after. That number is what the whole thing hangs on: when that person eventually installs Splitify and signs in with it, they land straight into the group with their share of the history already waiting for them.
Worth slowing down for. A name with the right number behind it becomes a real member the moment they join. Get a number wrong and that person's history has nowhere to go, and you will be redoing the import.
Step 4: Check balances
Open the group and check the numbers. If the "who owes whom" list does not look like the one you had in Splitwise, that is expected, and it usually is not an error.
Splitify simplifies debts by default. If your Splitwise group had simplification switched off, it was showing you every individual debt between every pair of people. If it was switched on, Splitwise still may have picked a different set of transfers to net things down to. Either way you are looking at two valid answers to the same question, and the totals underneath are identical.
So compare the thing that cannot change. Open group settings and look at each person's overall balance, then compare those figures against the same per-person balances in Splitwise. Whatever the simplification does to the individual transfers, what each person is up or down overall stays the same. If those per-person figures match, the import is correct.
Two minutes here is worth it. Much easier to satisfy yourself on day one than to relitigate it three months later when someone is trying to settle up.
Bringing the others
The technical part is done. The social part is the actual work.
What works, in order of how well it works:
- Import the group, add the next real expense, then share the invite link. Splitify offers you the link as soon as the import finishes. Put it in the group chat and people arrive to a ledger that already has their history and a live bill in it, rather than an empty app you are asking them to try.
- Lead with the reason. "No daily limit and no ads" lands better than "I found a new app". If your group has been hitting the cap, they already know the pain.
- Do it at the start of a month or a trip, when the ledger is naturally near zero and there is a clean line between old and new.
You do not need unanimous agreement. One or two people moving is enough to start, and the rest follow when the group activity is happening somewhere else.
If it goes wrong
- "No names found in the file." The export probably did not complete, or you selected the wrong file. Re-export from Splitwise and check the file opens in a spreadsheet app first.
- The file picker cannot see the export. If it came by email, download the attachment to your device before opening the picker.
- Still stuck. Email splitify.queries@gmail.com with the group name and what you are seeing. A real person reads it.
Bring your history with you
Import a group and pick up exactly where you left off, without the daily cap.
Common questions
How do I export my data from Splitwise?
Open the group in Splitwise, go to its settings, and choose the export option. Splitwise generates a spreadsheet of every expense in that group with dates, amounts, who paid and each person's share, then hands it to you via the share sheet or email.
Does importing from Splitwise bring my balances across?
Yes. The export carries the full expense history, so the balances rebuild from it. The list of who owes whom may look different, because Splitify simplifies debts by default and your Splitwise group may not have, or may have simplified them differently. To check the import worked, open group settings and compare each person's overall balance against the same figure in Splitwise. Those per-person totals do not change with simplification.
Do I need to settle up on Splitwise before switching?
No. Outstanding balances carry across in the export.
Can I import more than one group?
Yes. Export each group separately from Splitwise and import them one at a time. There is no limit on how many groups you can bring over.
What file types does Splitify accept?
CSV and Excel files, which covers what Splitwise produces. If the export reaches you as an email attachment, download it to your device first so the file picker can find it.
What happens to friends who are not on Splitify yet?
They come in as names from the export, and you attach a real phone number to each one during the import. That number is what links them up: when they install Splitify and sign in with it, they drop into the group with their history already there. Get the numbers right at import time rather than afterwards.