How to Import Your Games from Lichess and Chess.com into ChessAtlas

Note: ChessAtlas is our product. This tutorial walks through the import workflow directly.

Importing your games into ChessAtlas is typically a few-minute task that transforms dead archived games into active training material. Games are exchanged using the standard Portable Game Notation (PGN) format, so every game becomes data: where you left your preparation, which positions gave you trouble, which lines to drill next. This guide shows the full workflow: export PGN from whatever online chess site you play on (for example a major online play platform), upload to ChessAtlas, organize by color and opening, and drill with FSRS spaced repetition.

What You'll Need

• A free ChessAtlas account
• An active account on your online chess platform of choice, with at least a few rated games already played
• A modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge)
• Five spare minutes and a recent batch of games you want to turn into training material

No technical skills required. The core import is on the free tier; Premium adds advanced filters and extended history. If you have never exported a game record before, do not worry: every mainstream online play platform offers a one-click export, and ChessAtlas handles the rest of the parsing for you.

Option A: Automatic Account Sync (recommended)

The fastest method is to connect your online play account directly. ChessAtlas fetches your recent games automatically and keeps them synced as you play new ones, so your training queue stays current without any manual file handling.

1. Log in to ChessAtlas at app.chessatlas.net
2. Open the "Games" or "Deviation Finder" section
3. Click the "Connect account" option for your preferred online play platform
4. Enter your username (no password needed, ChessAtlas uses public game data)
5. ChessAtlas imports your recent games and runs them against your stored repertoire to find deviations

After the initial import, sync runs in the background and your newly finished rated games surface in your queue automatically. Tightening the loop between playing and reviewing is a long-standing principle of deliberate practice, the structured, feedback-driven training studied by psychologist Anders Ericsson and colleagues, who found that targeted review of your own weak points drives skill gains far more than undirected repetition.

Option B: Manual PGN Export + Upload

Use this method for one-time bulk imports or if you prefer manual control. Most online play platforms export the universal PGN format, which ChessAtlas reads natively, so the same upload step works no matter which site your games come from.

Exporting from your online play account

1. Open your public games page (while logged in) and use the game export option your platform provides
2. Set a date range or game count
3. Click the download option to generate a single .pgn file with all your games
4. For a single game: open the game, find the export or share menu, then copy or download the PGN

Finding the export option

1. Most sites place export under a "Share" or "Export" control near the board
2. Select the "PGN" choice and either copy the text or download a .pgn file
3. For bulk export, look for a games archive view that lets you filter by date range
4. Download the full PGN file for the period you selected

Uploading to ChessAtlas

1. In ChessAtlas, go to the Games section
2. Click "Import PGN"
3. Select your .pgn file (or drag and drop)
4. ChessAtlas parses moves, openings, ratings, and results automatically

Single games import almost instantly, and large archives are handled in a single pass, because the parser classifies every opening and computes deviations as it ingests each game rather than in a separate step.

What ChessAtlas Does With Your Games

Import is not the goal, turning games into training signal is. ChessAtlas processes your imported games by combining standard opening classification, based on the published Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings system, with spaced-repetition scheduling, in three steps:

1. Deviation Finder: identifies the exact move in each game where you or your opponent left your stored repertoire. That position becomes a candidate for your review queue.
2. Opening classification: auto-detects ECO codes and opening names (Sicilian Najdorf, Caro-Kann Advance, Queen's Gambit Declined, etc.) so you can filter by opening.
3. FSRS scheduling: positions you got wrong are added to the review deck with aggressive scheduling, while positions you played correctly stay mostly out of view. This uses the open-source Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler, whose effectiveness for long-term retention rests on the well-documented spacing effect in memory research.

The net result is that your training time prioritizes exactly the positions your real games expose as weak, rather than positions you already know cold. See our full deviation detection workflow for the complete methodology.

Organize After Import

Once games are in, structure them for review so the queue reflects your real weaknesses rather than a flat dump of every move:

• Filter by color: separate "White repertoire" from "Black vs 1.e4" and "Black vs 1.d4"
• Group by opening: all your Caro-Kann games together, all your Ruy Lopez games together
• Tag by result or rating gap: losses against higher-rated opponents are high-priority review material
• Flag recurring deviations: if the same opponent-deviation appears in 3+ games, upgrade it from "note" to "full repertoire line"

Organizing here pays off in later sessions because the review queue can then surface the right positions in a sensible order instead of presenting every move at once.

Common Issues and Fixes

PGN upload fails or shows format errors

A frequent cause is a PGN that was edited by hand and lost one of the required Seven Tag Roster headers defined by the PGN specification. Re-export using the default export, which produces ChessAtlas-compatible PGN. If you modified a PGN by hand, ensure headers [Event], [Date], [White], [Black], [Result] are present.

Every game shows as "deviation"

Deviation Finder compares your games against your stored repertoire. If you have not built a repertoire yet, every move counts as a deviation. Build your repertoire first, then re-run the deviation check. See how to build your first chess opening repertoire.

Bulk import of many games times out

Split the PGN file by date range or game type. The export tools on most online play platforms let you set a date range, so use monthly or quarterly ranges for very active accounts and upload them in batches.

Next Steps

After your import is complete, turn it into a repeatable weekly loop instead of a one-off cleanup:

1. Set up spaced-repetition drills for the top 3 to 5 positions Deviation Finder flagged
2. Play 3 to 5 rapid games per week using your repertoire, import them, and patch the gaps
3. Re-run deviation analysis weekly to keep your review queue fresh
4. Every 3 months, export your performance by opening to see which lines score well and which need overhaul

For the study framework this workflow plugs into, see How to Build a Chess Opening Repertoire That Actually Sticks.

Your Micro-Action Today

Export your last 20 rated games from the site you play on. Upload them to ChessAtlas. Run Deviation Finder. Drill the first 3 deviations it surfaces for 10 minutes. You now have your opening training loop running on real data, and you can repeat the same loop every week with almost no extra setup.

Create a free ChessAtlas account if you have not yet.

Sources and Further Reading

• Portable Game Notation (PGN) on Wikipedia documents the standard game-record format used for the import and its required headers.
• List of chess openings (ECO) on Wikipedia covers the classification codes ChessAtlas uses to label imported games.
• The Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler (FSRS) describes the algorithm that schedules the positions flagged from your games.
• The spacing effect summarizes the memory research that explains why spaced review outperforms cramming.