Trello is a board of cards. ClickUp is a hierarchy — Workspace, Space, Folder, List, Task, Subtask — with a dozen views layered on top. The import moves your cards across in minutes. What takes the rest of the day is deciding where they belong in a structure Trello never made you think about.
Teams that skip that decision end up with forty flat Lists and the same board they had before, inside a heavier tool. This guide covers the structural choice first, because it is the part that determines whether the move was worth making.
Understand the Hierarchy Before You Import
ClickUp’s levels, from the top:
| ClickUp level | What it is for | Trello equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Workspace | Your whole organisation | Account |
| Space | A department or major area | Workspace |
| Folder | A grouping of related work | No equivalent |
| List | The working unit | Board |
| Task | A piece of work | Card |
| Subtask | Nested work | Checklist item |
The two things to internalise:
Trello lists become ClickUp statuses, not ClickUp Lists. Your “To Do / Doing / Done” columns are a status workflow, and ClickUp models those as statuses on a List. Confusing the two produces a mess that is tedious to undo.
Folders have no Trello equivalent, which is why people ignore them. They are the level that stops you drowning in Lists once you have thirty of them.
Step 1: Audit Your Boards First
Open Trello and mark every board active, archive, or dead.
Most teams find half their boards have not been touched in six months. Export those to JSON or CSV and leave them. Migrating dead boards is the main reason a new tool feels as cluttered as the old one on day two.
For each active board, note which Power-Ups it uses. Those are the features you will need to replace, and most have ClickUp equivalents built in — which is usually why people are moving.
Step 2: Design Your Space Structure on Paper
Ten minutes with a pen saves a week of rework.
A workable pattern for a small business:
- Spaces = departments: Marketing, Sales, Operations, Product
- Folders = ongoing programmes or clients: “Client A”, “Q3 Campaign”
- Lists = the actual working queues: “Content Pipeline”, “Website Build”
Resist creating a Space per project. Spaces carry their own settings, permissions and custom fields, and having twenty of them makes the workspace unnavigable — the opposite of why you left Trello.
Step 3: Export a Backup
Even though you are using the importer. Each Trello board exports to JSON from the board menu, and paid plans support wider exports.
Store it outside both tools. If something goes wrong mid-migration you want a copy that does not depend on either vendor.
Step 4: Run the Import
ClickUp provides a documented Trello importer.
- In ClickUp, open Settings and find Import/Export.
- Choose Trello and authorise the connection.
- Select only the boards you marked active.
- Choose where they land — map each board to the Space and Folder you designed.
- Run it and wait.
What generally comes across: cards as tasks, lists as statuses, card descriptions, assignees, due dates, labels as tags, checklists as subtasks or checklists, comments, and attachments.
What generally does not: Power-Up configurations, Butler automations, board backgrounds and custom card layouts, and calendar or Power-Up-generated views.
Step 5: Verify Before Trusting It
Check these on every imported List:
- Assignees. If someone’s Trello email differs from their ClickUp email, their cards arrive unassigned. Filter for unassigned and fix.
- Statuses. Confirm your columns became statuses in the right order, and that “Done” is flagged as a closed status — otherwise your reporting counts finished work as open forever.
- Due dates. Spot-check ten tasks, especially anything with a start and due date.
- Attachments. Open three cards that had files. If files are missing, pull them from Trello before cancelling.
- Checklists. Decide whether these should be subtasks (trackable, assignable) or checklist items (lightweight). The importer picks one; you may want the other.
Step 6: Rebuild Automations
Butler rules do not transfer. Rather than recreating all of them, use the move as a cull — most teams find half their Butler rules were built once and never fired again.
List the rules that actually ran regularly, then rebuild those in ClickUp’s Automations. The common patterns map directly:
- When status changes to Done, move to a Done List or archive
- When a due date arrives, notify the assignee
- When a task is created from a form, assign it and set a priority
- When status changes to Blocked, notify the List owner
Build and test one at a time with a dummy task. Automations that misfire silently are worse than none.
Step 7: Turn Off the Views You Do Not Need
This is ClickUp-specific advice and it matters.
ClickUp ships with a lot of features enabled — multiple views, priorities, time tracking, sprints, custom fields, dependencies. Coming from Trello’s deliberate simplicity, this is overwhelming and it is the most common reason teams abandon ClickUp in month two.
In each Space, use ClickApps settings to switch off what you are not using. Start with the same simplicity Trello gave you — a board view and a list view — and enable features only when someone asks for one.
Step 8: Onboard, Then Cancel
Give the team fifteen minutes live. Cover the vocabulary change (board becomes List, card becomes task, column becomes status), where their personal view is (Home and My Tasks), and who to ask when something is missing.
Name one owner for the first month who approves new Spaces and Lists, or the hierarchy sprawls immediately.
Keep Trello readable for two weeks. Then export a final backup and cancel.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Importing before designing the hierarchy. The single biggest cause of rework. Ten minutes on paper first.
- Turning Trello lists into ClickUp Lists. They are statuses. Getting this wrong is tedious to reverse.
- Migrating dead boards. Half of them are dead. Archive, do not import.
- Leaving every ClickApp enabled. The feature volume is why people quit ClickUp. Switch things off.
- Creating a Space per project. Use Folders. Twenty Spaces is unnavigable.
- Not flagging Done as a closed status. Breaks reporting silently.
- Assuming Butler rules came across. They did not.
- Cancelling Trello immediately. Two weeks of overlap costs little and prevents real loss.
FAQs
Does ClickUp have an official Trello importer?
Yes. It brings across cards, lists as statuses, assignees, due dates, labels, checklists, comments and attachments. Butler automations and Power-Up configurations are not included.
Will my Trello Power-Ups work in ClickUp?
Not directly, but most common Power-Ups replicate features ClickUp has natively — time tracking, custom fields, calendars, dependencies. Check what each Power-Up did and enable the equivalent ClickApp.
What happens to Trello checklists?
They import as subtasks or checklist items. Subtasks are trackable and assignable; checklist items are lightweight. Decide which you want per List and adjust after import.
How long does the migration take?
The import runs in minutes. Auditing boards, designing the hierarchy, verifying data, rebuilding automations and switching off unused features takes roughly half a day for a small team, up to two days for a heavily automated setup.
Is ClickUp harder to use than Trello?
Yes, considerably, unless you deliberately simplify it. Trello does one thing with almost no learning curve. ClickUp does many things and shows you all of them by default. Turning features off is the key to a successful move.
Should we migrate completed boards?
No. Export them to JSON and store the file. Finished work in a new tool adds clutter without value.
Key Takeaways
- Design your Space, Folder and List structure before importing anything.
- Trello columns become ClickUp statuses, not Lists.
- Audit first — half your boards are probably dead.
- Switch off unused ClickApps or the feature volume will drive the team away.
- Butler automations do not transfer; rebuild only the ones that actually fired.
Next Steps
Start with the board audit and the paper hierarchy. Both are free, take half an hour together, and determine how much of the rest you actually have to do.
If you are still deciding, our ClickUp vs Notion comparison and the wider project management guide cover whether ClickUp is the right destination. Our ClickUp setup guide covers configuring it properly once you arrive.