---
title: 'How to Integrate Airtable with Trello: 3 Methods + Migration Guide'
description: 'Three ways to connect Airtable and Trello — Zapier, Make, and full migration — plus a step-by-step guide for moving off Trello onto Airtable Kanban with cards, attachments, and comments preserved.'
canonical_url: 'https://www.business-automated.com/tutorials/airtable-trello-integration-migration'
md_url: 'https://www.business-automated.com/tutorials/airtable-trello-integration-migration.md'
last_updated: 2026-05-26
---

Trello is one of the few project tools that gets the job right at small scale. Drag a card from To Do to Doing to Done. Add a comment. Tag a teammate. Anyone can use it within five minutes. That simplicity is what makes Trello stick — and what eventually makes teams outgrow it.

The common path: Trello is great for the first year. Then someone wants a view of cards across multiple boards. Someone else wants to link cards to client records. Someone wants automated reports. Trello can do some of this through Butler and Power-Ups, but the relational and reporting limits show up fast.

This guide covers three ways to handle the Airtable–Trello relationship: a lightweight Zapier sync, a more capable Make sync, and a full migration off Trello onto [Airtable](/airtable-consultant) Kanban views.

## Decide First: Integrate or Migrate?

Three signals to migrate rather than integrate:

1. **You have more than 5 Trello boards** and want any kind of cross-board view.
2. **You're maintaining the same data in two places** — projects in Airtable, cards mirroring the projects in Trello.
3. **You need reporting** that Trello's free or paid Power-Ups can't deliver.

Three signals to integrate (keep Trello, sync with Airtable):

1. **The team genuinely prefers the Trello UI** and would be unhappy moving.
2. **Trello is one piece of a larger flow** where Airtable just needs to know about cards.
3. **You're in transition** — keeping Trello as the front-end during a longer migration.

If you're integrating, pick a method below. If you're migrating, jump to the migration section.

## Method 1: Zapier (Simplest)

Zapier handles the common Trello-to-Airtable use case with minimal setup. For most one-way syncs, this is the right tool.

**Common Zaps:**

- New Trello card → Create Airtable record
- Card moved to a specific list → Update Airtable record
- New comment on Trello card → Create Comment record in Airtable
- New Airtable record matching conditions → Create Trello card

Setup walkthrough for "new card creates Airtable record":

1. In Zapier, create a new Zap.
2. Trigger: **Trello — New Card**. Connect your Trello account. Pick the board and list.
3. Action: **Airtable — Find Record**. Search by Trello card ID. Toggle "Create if not found." This avoids duplicates if the Zap runs twice on the same card.
4. (Optional) Action: **Airtable — Update Record**. Set fields like Status from the Trello list name.

For the reverse direction (Airtable creates Trello card):

1. Trigger: **Airtable — New Record in View** (a view filtered to records that should appear in Trello).
2. Action: **Trello — Create Card**. Set board, list, name, description.
3. Action: **Airtable — Update Record**. Store the Trello card ID on the Airtable record for future reference.

The Trello card ID is the key. Always store it on the Airtable record so update Zaps can find the right card later.

For a deeper Zapier reference, see our [Airtable + Zapier guide](/tutorials/automate-airtable-with-zapier-guide).

## Method 2: Make (More Capable)

Make handles the integration when Zapier starts getting in your way — typically when you need:

- Multi-step workflows beyond simple A-to-B
- Branching by card type or list
- Bulk operations (sync a whole board on-demand)
- Reliable two-way sync without loops

A two-way sync in Make uses two scenarios.

**Scenario A: Trello → Airtable**

1. Trigger: **Trello — Watch Cards** (new or moved).
2. **Airtable — Search Records** by Trello card ID.
3. **Router:** if found, update; if not, create.
4. Update or Create record with the card's data and a `Last Synced From` field set to `Trello`.

**Scenario B: Airtable → Trello**

1. Trigger: **Airtable — Watch Records** on a view of records that need syncing.
2. **Filter:** skip records where `Last Synced From = Trello` and the last update was within the last 5 minutes (prevents loops from Scenario A).
3. **Router:** if Trello Card ID is empty, create a new card; otherwise update the existing one.
4. Update or Create the Trello card.
5. **Airtable Update:** store the Trello card ID and set `Last Synced From = Airtable`.

The `Last Synced From` field plus a time check is the loop-prevention pattern. Without it, every change on one side fires a sync to the other, which fires another sync back, and so on.

For the Make patterns, see our [Make guide](/tutorials/automate-airtable-with-make-guide).

## Method 3: Migration (Full Move)

When you're ready to leave Trello entirely, the migration is more work than the integration but less than people expect.

### Step 1: Export Trello Boards

For each board:

1. In Trello, open the board, click the menu, choose **More → Print and Export → Export as JSON**.
2. Save the JSON file. It contains cards, lists, comments, attachments, members, labels, and checklists.

The JSON is well-structured but verbose. You don't need to manipulate it by hand for most fields — Airtable's import handles the basics if you flatten to CSV first.

### Step 2: Design the Airtable Schema

A reasonable starting schema for one or more migrated boards:

**Cards** (the main table)

- Title (primary)
- Status (single-select — the values are your Trello list names: To Do, Doing, Done)
- Description (long text)
- Due Date
- Members (collaborator field)
- Labels (multi-select)
- Attachments (attachment)
- Trello Card ID (for reference)
- Board (single-select or linked → Boards if multiple)

**Comments** (linked to Cards)

- Comment Text (long text)
- Author (collaborator or text if migrating from someone not in your workspace)
- Posted At
- Card (linked → Cards)

**Checklist Items** (linked to Cards)

- Item Text
- Checked (checkbox)
- Card (linked → Cards)

For multiple boards, add a Boards table for cross-board reporting.

### Step 3: Convert JSON to CSV

Most teams write a one-time script (or use an online JSON-to-CSV tool) to extract the cards. The key fields:

```python
# Pseudo-script — adjust for your language of choice
for card in trello_json["cards"]:
    if card.get("closed"): continue  # skip archived cards
    list_name = list_lookup[card["idList"]]
    write_row({
        "Title": card["name"],
        "Status": list_name,
        "Description": card["desc"],
        "Due Date": card.get("due"),
        "Members": ", ".join(member_lookup[mid] for mid in card["idMembers"]),
        "Labels": ", ".join(label["name"] for label in card["labels"]),
        "Trello Card ID": card["id"]
    })
```

The result is a CSV you can import directly into Airtable. Comments and checklists need a similar script that generates rows for the Comments and Checklist Items tables, each row linked to the parent card by Trello Card ID.

If scripting isn't an option, the manual route is: import only the active cards into Airtable, accept that comments and checklists will be summarized in the Description field rather than preserved as separate records. For boards under 100 active cards, this is often the right call — pure migration speed beats fidelity.

### Step 4: Import to Airtable

For each table:

1. In Airtable, open the table and choose **Import → CSV**.
2. Map columns to fields. Watch for the Status field — it should map to your single-select; the import will offer to create options for unmatched values.
3. For the Members field, ensure usernames match Airtable collaborators or text representations.
4. Run the import.

After the Cards import is done, run the Comments and Checklist Items imports. Their linked Card field needs to match by Trello Card ID, which Airtable will resolve automatically as long as the IDs are in the source CSV.

### Step 5: Build the Kanban View

In the Cards table:

1. Create a new view, choose Kanban.
2. Pick the Status single-select as the stack-by field.
3. Customize card appearance — show Title, Due Date, Members, Labels on the front of the card.
4. Add filters if needed (e.g., hide archived cards).

The board looks similar to the Trello one. Drag-and-drop between columns updates the Status field. From here, you can also build:

- A Calendar view on Due Date
- A Grid view for bulk editing
- A Timeline view if you've added a start date
- An Interface page that combines a Kanban with cross-board stats

### Step 6: Set Up Comments and Activity

Airtable has record-level comments (a comment thread on each record, similar to Trello's). These are different from the migrated historical Comments records. We'd recommend:

- **Migrated Comments table:** read-only history, kept for reference.
- **New conversations:** use Airtable's native record comments, which support @mentions and trigger Slack notifications.

Going forward, the new comments thread is the working surface. The migrated comments are an archive.

### Step 7: Train the Team and Cut Over

Run both systems in parallel for one to two weeks. During that time:

- Show the team the Airtable views, especially the Kanban
- Document the small differences (no Trello-specific Power-Ups, different mobile experience)
- Set a hard cutover date

After cutover, lock the Trello boards (set them to read-only or archive them). Don't delete for at least 90 days — you'll want the option to look something up.

## Card Attachments — How They Migrate

Trello attachments are URLs. The JSON export includes them. Airtable's attachment field accepts URL input, so the import process can ingest attachments by URL.

There's a wrinkle: Trello-hosted attachments (files uploaded to Trello, not links to external services) have URLs that require Trello authentication. Those URLs will work for a while but can break if you change Trello plans or close the workspace. For long-term reliability, download and re-upload attachments during migration. A script that fetches each URL and saves to your own storage (Drive, Dropbox, S3), then provides the new URL to Airtable, solves this.

For under 100 cards, manual download/upload is reasonable. Above that, scripting is worth the hour it takes to write.

## Comparing the Three Methods

| Aspect              | Zapier sync           | Make sync                  | Full migration             |
| ------------------- | --------------------- | -------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| Setup time          | 1-2 hours             | 4-8 hours                  | 1-2 days                   |
| Ongoing maintenance | Low                   | Low-medium                 | None after migration       |
| Cost                | Zapier plan ($20+/mo) | Make plan ($19+/mo)        | Trello plan can be dropped |
| Best for            | Simple one-way sync   | Two-way or complex         | Trello fully replaced      |
| Risk                | Sync drift over time  | Loop bugs if misconfigured | One-time migration effort  |

Most teams progress through these in order: start with a Zapier integration, find the limits, upgrade to Make, eventually migrate. The integration phase tends to last 6-18 months before the team is ready for the full move.

## What You Gain by Migrating

The honest list of upgrades:

- **Cross-board reporting.** One filter across all "boards" (which become views) on a single table.
- **Relational data.** Cards can link to Clients, Projects, Sprints, anything else.
- **Custom views.** Same data shown as Kanban, Calendar, Grid, Gallery, Timeline — switchable in one click.
- **Filtered shareable views.** Send a client a read-only filtered view of just their cards, no Trello account needed.
- **Automations beyond Butler.** Trello's automation tool is fine for simple rules; Airtable's automations plus Make handle anything.
- **Dashboards.** [Interface Designer](/tutorials/airtable-interface-designer-guide) builds executive-level dashboards on top of the same data.

What you give up:

- The Trello brand's polish on cards
- A handful of Trello-specific Power-Ups
- The dead-simple onboarding for new team members (Airtable has a learning curve, even with a clean interface)

For most teams that have outgrown Trello, the trade is heavily in Airtable's favor. The teams that should stay on Trello are usually small, well-served by Trello's UX, and not yet feeling the limits.

## Where to Go Next

For the relational patterns Airtable adds beyond Kanban, see our [linked records explainer](/tutorials/airtable-linked-records-explained). For building dashboards on top of migrated card data, the [Interface Designer guide](/tutorials/airtable-interface-designer-guide) covers the layouts that work best for project work.

For specifics on Trello's JSON export structure, [Trello's developer documentation](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/trello/rest/) has the canonical schema reference.


## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.