Import monitors from UptimeRobot into Ping Now

Before you start

A Ping Now account and a plan

The import is part of the signed-in monitors page, so you need a Ping Now account first. Create an account with your email address. Ping Now has no free monitors. There are two monthly plans:

• Starter costs $5/month for 1 URL monitor
• Basic costs $20/month for up to 50 URL monitors

Both plans start with a 7-day trial, and the trial needs a card. One trial is available per account.

An account without a plan can hold one paused monitor, and the import uses that limit too. If you're moving more than one monitor, start the Basic trial on the plans page before you run the import. Otherwise at most one monitor can be Ready, and the preview marks the rest as over the limit.

An UptimeRobot read-only API key

In UptimeRobot, open the Integrations page and go to its API section. UptimeRobot offers three kinds of key there: the main account key, monitor-specific keys and a read-only key. Create or copy the read-only key.

Use the read-only key for the import. The read-only key can list monitors but can't change or delete them. UptimeRobot only sends the headers browsers need for read-only and monitor-specific keys, and Ping Now reads your monitors from the browser, so the main key doesn't work here. A monitor-specific key covers just one monitor, so the preview would show only that monitor.

Export the full list first (optional)

The import only shows the monitors it can move. To see everything, including paused monitors, other monitor types and alert contacts, run the free UptimeRobot monitor export first. It saves a CSV or JSON file in your browser, needs no Ping Now account, and its "Moves to Ping Now" column uses the same rules as the import. You can check the columns in the sample CSV before you enter a key. Keep the file as a checklist for the settings you have to recreate by hand.

Import your monitors

1. Log in and open the Monitors page.
2. Below your monitor list, expand Move monitors from UptimeRobot. New accounts see it below the form for the first URL.
3. Paste the read-only key into UptimeRobot read-only API key and click Preview import.
4. Read the preview. The summary line shows how many monitors are ready, how many slots your account had before this preview and your account's monitor limit. Ready monitors are listed first. Everything else is under Not imported with a reason.
5. Click Import N monitors. Ping Now adds every Ready monitor and shows how many it imported. The preview has no per-monitor checkboxes, so delete any monitor you don't want afterwards.

Ping Now reads up to 500 monitors from your UptimeRobot account, 50 per request. Monitors after the first 500 aren't read, so add those URLs by hand.

Which UptimeRobot monitors can be imported

An UptimeRobot monitor moves only when it's an active HTTP(s) monitor with a plain HTTP or HTTPS URL. Your browser filters out the rest before Ping Now receives anything. When the preview loads, these monitors are listed by name under Not imported:

• Keyword, ping, port, heartbeat and every other non-HTTP monitor type. A keyword monitor checks a URL too, but Ping Now doesn't check page content. If a plain status check is enough, add that URL on the monitors page.
• Paused monitors. Ping Now would start checking them, so add any you still want by hand.
• Monitors with a missing status, ID or URL.
• URLs with a username or password in them, or with a query parameter whose name is one of these: token, api_key, access_token, auth, authorization, password, passwd, secret, sig or signature. Matching ignores case and punctuation. The preview says the URL "was kept in this browser and not imported", and Ping Now never receives it.

For a monitor that qualifies, Ping Now copies only the URL, minus any # fragment. Ping Now checks every monitor the same way: every five minutes from one location, with a second check 10 seconds after a failure before a down alert goes out.

What the preview statuses mean

Ping Now's server compares the eligible URLs with the monitors already in your account and gives each one of these statuses. The preview shows the message in the right column.

Duplicate matching compares the full URL. Letter case in the domain and a trailing slash after a bare domain don't count as differences. A different scheme, path or query does, so http://example.com and https://example.com are two monitors.

Slots go to monitors in the order UptimeRobot returns them. Paused Ping Now monitors still use a slot. Running the import again is safe, because the URLs you already imported come back as Already monitored.

When you click Import, Ping Now checks the URLs against your account again and adds only the ones that are still Ready. The imported count can be lower than the preview if your monitors or plan changed in between.

When imported monitors start checking

With a trial or a paid plan, imported monitors start on Ping Now's normal five-minute schedule. Down and recovery emails go to your signup email address. Slack alerts are optional and use one incoming webhook, which you set on the monitors page.

Without a plan, the one monitor the import adds is paused and shows a paused badge. Checks begin once you start a trial on the plans page.

If you later move to a plan with fewer monitors, your oldest monitors keep running and the rest are paused until you switch plans or delete some.

What to set up again in Ping Now

The import doesn't copy these UptimeRobot settings. Some of them have no equivalent in Ping Now:

• Monitor names and tags. Ping Now lists monitors by URL.
• Check intervals. Ping Now checks every five minutes on both plans.
• HTTP method, custom headers, request body, HTTP authentication, timeouts and accepted status codes.
• Alert contacts and integrations. Ping Now sends alerts to the signup email and one optional Slack channel. It has no SMS, extra email contacts or generic webhooks.
• Status pages and maintenance windows. Ping Now doesn't have them.
• Uptime history, incidents and response times. They stay in UptimeRobot, which can export its logs as CSV.

The import doesn't change anything in UptimeRobot, and a read-only key can't. Pause or delete the old monitors in UptimeRobot yourself once Ping Now is checking the URLs.

How Ping Now handles your UptimeRobot API key

Your browser sends the read-only key straight to UptimeRobot's API at https://api.uptimerobot.com/v2/getMonitors. The key is never sent to Ping Now's servers and Ping Now doesn't store it. The key field is a password field, and the import clears it once the preview loads or fails. If your browser offers to save it as a password, decline.

Ping Now's servers receive the eligible monitor URLs and nothing else from UptimeRobot. The browser sends them twice through your signed-in session: once for the preview and again, with only the Ready URLs, for the import. Monitor names and the URLs your browser filtered out aren't sent.

If you created a read-only key just for the move, you can delete or regenerate it in UptimeRobot afterwards.

Import vs the free UptimeRobot export

The import and the export both read UptimeRobot with a read-only key from your browser. They do different jobs:

• The import needs a Ping Now account. It reads UptimeRobot's v2 API, sends the eligible URLs to Ping Now and creates monitors in your account.
• The export needs no account. It reads UptimeRobot's v3 API, includes paused and non-HTTP monitors with their alert contacts, and saves a CSV or JSON file in your browser. The export doesn't send your key or monitor data to Ping Now.

If the preview doesn't load

• "Could not reach UptimeRobot from this browser." The browser request to UptimeRobot failed. Check your connection, then try with privacy or ad-blocking extensions turned off for the page. A main account key also ends up here, because UptimeRobot doesn't send the headers a browser needs for that key. Use the read-only key.
• A message starting with "UptimeRobot". UptimeRobot rejected the request. Copy the read-only key again from the Integrations page.
• "No active HTTP(s) monitors were available to import." The key worked, but every monitor was skipped for one of the reasons listed above. The export shows which reason applies to each monitor.

After a failed preview, paste the key again. The field is cleared after each attempt.