How to Import a .vp File

When someone sends you a .vp file — or you want to restore a backup you saved earlier — the Import button on the Project List is the way in. VisionPlan reads the file, creates a new project from its contents, and you're ready to edit immediately. The original file stays untouched on disk.

This article covers the import flow. To package up your own project as a .vp file, see How to Export a .vp File.

Where the Import button lives

The Import button sits in the top-right corner of the Project List screen, in the app bar. It uses a folder-with-arrow icon and the tooltip reads "Import .vp file".

It's available whether you have zero projects or many — on a fresh install with an empty list, you can import straight in without creating a project first.

Import a file

1. Open the Project List (the home screen with your existing projects).
2. Tap the Import .vp file button in the top app bar.
3. Your browser's file picker opens. Navigate to the .vp file you want to import.
4. Pick the file and confirm. VisionPlan reads it and adds the project to your list.
5. A snackbar at the bottom confirms with "Project imported successfully".
6. The new project appears in your Project List. Tap it to open in the editor.

The file picker is filtered to show .vp files (and .json, since .vp files are JSON under the hood). You can still navigate to other folders and pick any file — VisionPlan only knows whether it's valid after it tries to read it.

What import does, exactly

Import creates a new project from the file's contents. A few things to know:

• The imported project gets a fresh project ID — it's not the same record as the original. If both you and the sender open the same file separately, you each end up with your own independent copy.
• The created date and last modified date are set to right now. Your Project List sorts by recency, so the imported project lands at the top.
• All rooms, walls, openings, fixtures, dimensions, annotations, flooring, and construction guides come across intact.
• The project name comes from the file. If you'd rather rename it, use the Edit Details pencil icon in the project's row after import.
• After the first autosave (or Ctrl+S) the imported project also pushes to your cloud account, exactly like a manually-created one.

Errors and rejected files

If the file isn't a valid VisionPlan project, you'll see a snackbar at the bottom that starts with "Invalid .vp file:" followed by a short technical reason. The most common causes:

• The file isn't really a .vp file — sometimes a download arrives as something.vp.txt or got renamed by an email client. The file picker accepts the extension, but the contents won't parse.
• The file is corrupted or truncated — interrupted download, opened-and-resaved in a text editor, etc. Ask the sender to re-export and resend.
• The file is from a much newer build — usually still imports, but flag this if you see anything unexpected.

v1 is the first shipped version of the .vp format, so back-compat is forward-looking — files exported now should keep opening as the format evolves. If a future format change ever breaks something, this article will pick up the version policy at that point.

If the file looks fine but won't import, ask the sender to re-export from their copy. The original .vp on disk is never modified during import — failed imports leave both your Project List and the file itself untouched.

Project size limits

VisionPlan enforces realistic ceilings on projects to catch corrupted files early and bound resource use:

• Up to 25 rooms in a single project.
• Up to 30 walls per room.
• Up to 50 fixtures per room, 400 fixtures total across the project.
• Up to 500 walls total across the project.

These ceilings sit well above realistic residential renovation use — a 15-room mansion with 200 fixtures is already an outlier.

Where the check fires: the ceilings are validated when the project opens in the editor, not at import time. An oversized .vp file imports into your Project List successfully, but tapping it to open will surface a "this project looks corrupted" message instead of loading. Tracked for unification — eventually the ceiling check will run at import time too, so the rejected file never makes it into your list.

After import

The new project behaves like any other project in your list:

• Edit Details (pencil icon) — rename, change customer, update address, swap job type.
• Open (tap the row or card) — drops into the editor with all rooms, walls, and fixtures in place.
• Duplicate (overflow menu) — make a copy you can experiment on without touching the imported original.
• Delete (overflow menu) — remove from your Project List. This doesn't touch the source .vp file on disk — that's a separate snapshot, untouched.

Once you start editing, autosave kicks in normally and the project gets backed up to your account on the portal if you're signed in. See Save your work for what that flow looks like.

Mode awareness

The Import button is the same in Customer mode and Contractor mode. The file itself doesn't carry a mode preference — you'll see the imported project laid out using whatever mode you're currently in.

Tips

• A .vp file shared with you is your own copy after import. Editing it doesn't push changes back to the sender — they'd need a fresh re-export from you to see your edits.
• Keep the original .vp file around as a fallback. If you make changes you regret and undo isn't enough, you can always re-import the original to get a clean copy alongside your edited one.
• Mobile users can import too — the file picker opens the OS file browser (Files on iOS, Files / Drive on Android). Pick the .vp from wherever your messaging or email app saved it.
• If a file came in through a chat app that mangled the extension (some platforms append .json or strip the extension entirely), try renaming it back to .vp on disk before importing.

Related

• How to Export a .vp File
• .vp Files vs. Cloud Sync
• Save your work — autosave and manual save
• Create your first project