Tutorial

Import Data into Redis

February 27, 20263 minute read

TL;DR:

The fastest way to bulk load data into Redis is with redis-cli --pipe, which uses the Redis protocol to stream commands directly into the server. For structured data like CSV, JSON, or SQL, use RIOT-X to transform and import in a single step.

Redis offers multiple ways to import data into a database: from a file, a script, or from an existing Redis database. Whether you need to bulk load CSV data, restore an RDB snapshot, or migrate from an RDBMS, this guide covers the most common approaches.

#What you'll learn

How to bulk insert data using a redis-cli script
How to use redis-cli pipe mode for mass insertion
How to restore data from an RDB file
How to import and synchronize data using RIOT (CSV, JSON, SQL)
How to load data into Redis Cloud

#How do I bulk insert data using a redis-cli script?

1. Create a simple file users.redis with all the commands you want to run

2. Use the redis-cli tool to execute the script

This approach runs each command sequentially and will not impact the existing data, except if you modify existing keys in the script.

INFO

Sample dataset: You can find sample datasets ready to be imported using this method in the redis-datasets repository.

#How do I use redis-cli pipe mode for mass insertion?

For large-scale bulk loading, redis-cli --pipe is significantly faster than running commands one at a time. Pipe mode sends data using the Redis protocol in a streaming fashion, avoiding the round-trip latency of individual commands.

The input file must use the Redis serialization protocol (RESP). You can generate RESP-formatted commands from CSV or other data sources using a script and then pipe the output into Redis.

#How do I restore data from an RDB file?

If you have an RDB file dump.rdb that contains the data you want, you can use this file to create a new database.

Copy the dump.rdb file into the Redis working directory.

If you do not know which folder this is, you can run the command CONFIG get dir on your running Redis instance.
Start the Redis service with redis-server.
The file dump.rdb is automatically imported.
Connect to the database using redis-cli or any other client to verify the data has been imported (for example, using SCAN).

#Related Articles

Redis Persistence

#How do I import data using RIOT?

Redis Input/Output Tools (RIOT-X) is a set of import/export command line utilities for Redis. RIOT-X is the recommended tool when you need to bulk import CSV, JSON, or SQL data into Redis.

RIOT DB: migrate from an RDBMS to Redis, Search, JSON, and more.
RIOT File: bulk import/export data from/to files (CSV, JSON).
RIOT Gen: generate sample Redis datasets for new feature development and proof of concept.
RIOT Redis: live replication from any Redis database (including AWS ElastiCache) to another Redis database.
RIOT Stream: import/export messages from/to Kafka topics.

#How do I import data into Redis Cloud?

You can easily import data into Redis Cloud. See the following documentation:

Importing Data into Redis Cloud

#Next steps

Once your data is loaded into Redis, you may want to create indexes to query it efficiently. See the Indexing and Querying guide to learn how to build secondary indexes using Sorted Sets, Hashes, and Redis Query Engine.