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Items migrated when using direct transfer

  • Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
  • Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

Many items are migrated when using the direct transfer method, and some are excluded.

Migrated group items

The group items that are migrated depend on the version of GitLab you use on the destination. To determine if a specific group item is migrated:

  1. Check the groups/stage.rb file for all editions and the groups/stage.rb file for Enterprise Edition for your version on the destination. For example, for version 15.9:
  2. Check the group/import_export.yml file for groups for your version on the destination. For example, for version 15.9: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/15-9-stable-ee/lib/gitlab/import_export/group/import_export.yml.

Any other group items are not migrated.

Group items that are migrated to the destination GitLab instance include:

  • Badges

  • Boards

  • Board lists

  • Epics

  • Group labels

    Group labels cannot retain any associated label priorities during import. You must prioritize these labels again manually after you migrate the relevant project to the destination instance.

  • Group milestones

  • Iterations

  • Iteration cadences

  • Members

  • Namespace settings

  • Release milestones

  • Subgroups

  • Uploads

  • Wikis

Excluded items

Some group items are excluded from migration because they:

  • Might contain sensitive information:
    • CI/CD variables
    • Deploy tokens
    • Webhooks
  • Are not supported:
    • Custom fields
    • Iteration cadence settings
    • Pending member invitations
    • Push rules

Migrated project items

Version history

If you choose to migrate projects when you select groups to migrate, project items are migrated with the projects.

The project items that are migrated depends on the version of GitLab you use on the destination. To determine if a specific project item is migrated:

  1. Check the projects/stage.rb file for all editions and the projects/stage.rb file for Enterprise Edition for your version on the destination. For example, for version 15.9:
  2. Check the project/import_export.yml file for projects for your version on the destination. For example, for version 15.9: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/15-9-stable-ee/lib/gitlab/import_export/project/import_export.yml.

Any other project items are not migrated.

If you choose not to migrate projects along with groups or if you want to retry a project migration, you can initiate project-only migrations using the API.

Project items that are migrated to the destination GitLab instance include:

  • Auto DevOps

  • Badges

  • Branches (including protected branches)

    Imported branches respect the default branch protection settings of the destination group. These settings might cause an unprotected branch to be imported as protected.

  • CI pipelines

  • Commit comments

  • Designs

  • External merge requests

  • Issues

  • Issue boards

  • Labels

  • LFS objects

  • Members

  • Merge requests

  • Milestones

  • Pipeline history

  • Pipeline schedules

  • Projects

  • Project features

  • Push rules

  • Releases

  • Release evidences

  • Repositories

  • Settings

  • Snippets

  • Uploads

  • Vulnerability reports

    Introduced in GitLab 17.7. Vulnerability reports are migrated without their status. For more information, see issue 512859. For the ActiveRecord::RecordNotUnique error when migrating vulnerability reports, see issue 509904.

  • Wikis

Issue-related items

Issue-related project items that are migrated to the destination GitLab instance include:

  • Issue comments
  • Issue iterations
  • Issue resource iteration events
  • Issue resource milestone events
  • Issue resource state events
  • Merge request URL references
  • Time tracking

Merge request-related items

Merge request-related project items that are migrated to the destination GitLab instance include:

  • Issue URL references
  • Merge request approvers
  • Merge request comments
  • Merge request resource milestone events
  • Merge request resource state events
  • Merge request reviewers
  • Multiple merge request assignees
  • Time tracking

Setting-related items

Setting-related project items that are migrated to the destination GitLab instance include:

  • Avatar
  • Container expiration policy
  • Project properties
  • Service Desk

Excluded items

Some project items are excluded from migration because they:

  • Might contain sensitive information:

    • CI/CD job logs
    • CI/CD variables
    • Container registry images
    • Deploy keys
    • Deploy tokens
    • Encrypted tokens
    • Job artifacts
    • Pipeline schedule variables
    • Pipeline triggers
    • Webhooks

  • Are not supported:

    • Agents

    • Container registry

    • Custom fields

    • Environments

    • Feature flags

    • Infrastructure registry

    • Instance administrators in branch protection rules when migrating from GitLab Self-Managed to GitLab.com or GitLab Dedicated

    • Linked issues

    • Merge request approval rules

    • Merge request dependencies

    • Package registry

    • Pages domains

    • Pending member invitations

    • Remote mirrors

    • Wiki comments

      Approval rules related to project settings are imported.

  • Do not contain recoverable data:

    • Merge requests with no diff or source information (for more information, see issue 537943)