Importing Postman

The Postman importer reads a Postman Collection v2.1 JSON export and creates a Rewind collection from it. Folders become folders, requests become requests, and a best-effort translation is done on each part of the request.

How to import

1. Click Import in the top bar.
2. Click the Postman tab.
3. Either paste the collection JSON into the textarea, or click Choose file and pick the .postman_collection.json file you exported from Postman.
4. Click Import API.

The new collection appears in the sidebar, named from the info.name field. Folder nesting is preserved.

What gets translated

Postman field	Rewind equivalent
info.name	Collection name
info.description	Collection description
item (folder)	Folder
item.item (nested)	Subfolder
item.name (request)	Request name
item.request.method	HTTP method
item.request.url.raw	Request URL
item.request.url.<pathVar>	{{pathVar}} in the URL
item.request.header[]	Header rows
item.request.url.query[]	Query param rows
item.request.body.raw (with Content-Type: application/json)	Raw body, JSON content type
item.request.body.urlencoded[]	URL-encoded body
item.request.body.formdata[] (text)	Multipart text field
item.request.auth.bearer.token	Bearer token
item.request.auth.basic.username / password	Basic auth
item.request.auth.apikey.key / value / in	API key
item.variable[]	Variables merged into the active environment

What is not translated

• File form-data fields — the importer skips them. Multipart file uploads require a real file on disk, which the import format does not carry. You'll need to re-add the file fields manually in the Rewind body editor.
• Binary bodies — mode: "file" is not translated. Re-attach the file in the Binary mode editor.
• GraphQL bodies — Postman stores them as raw bodies; they come across as Raw, which works as long as the content type is set correctly.
• Authentication helpers — Postman's auth helpers like AWS Signature, OAuth 1, and Hawk are not translated. They become Auth type: No auth; you'll need to recreate them.
• Collection-level variables — info._postman_variable_scope and similar Postman-specific fields are ignored.
• Scripts — Pre-request and test scripts are ignored.
• Examples and mock responses — Ignored.

After importing

The collection is fully usable, but you may want to:

• Re-attach any file form-data fields manually using the multipart editor.
• Convert any script-based auth (OAuth 2 helpers, AWS Sig V4) to the Auth tab equivalent.
• Re-save the collection to lock in the imported state.

Common pitfalls

• "Postman collection must contain an item array" — the JSON you pasted is not a Postman v2.1 collection. It's probably an OpenAPI spec, an environment, or a wrapped export.
• Variables in the URL stayed as :pathVar — Postman uses :pathVar syntax; the importer converts it to {{pathVar}}. If you have a variable that matches the literal name in your environment, it'll resolve. Otherwise the request will fail with "Request has unresolved variables."
• Auth came in as No auth — the importer only knows bearer, basic, and apikey. Anything else (OAuth 1, AWS, Hawk, Digest) is dropped.
• Folders are flattened — a folder with the same name as one already in the collection is created separately. The importer does not merge folders across imports.

What's next?

• Importing OpenAPI — if your spec is OpenAPI instead
• Authentication — fixing auth that didn't import
• Exporting and backups — saving the collection for reuse