This article walks through moving an existing Revit family library out of Unifi and into Pirros. It covers the export, the version cleanup that can happen during upload, and how to carry your tags across.
If you haven't configured your family upload settings yet, do that first — see Implementation Plan: Families. Upload settings should be set before you upload anything.
Before You Start
Autodesk does not provide an API for bulk-exporting content out of Unifi, so the export side is manual. Someone on your team will need to download families in batches through the Unifi interface. For a well-curated library this is typically a few days of work for one person, and it is the longest step in the migration — everything after it is fast.
Also worth knowing up front: legacy exports generally do not carry system families or materials saved inside families. Those are handled separately in Step 5 below.
Step 1: Export from Unifi
1 | Assign one owner to the download | Because the export is manual, it works best as one person's task rather than something split across a team. Downloading in batches keeps it manageable. |
2 | Work discipline by discipline | Start with architecture — usually the largest and most-used library — then structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection. Finishing one discipline first lets you validate the whole workflow before committing to the rest. |
3 | Keep each discipline in its own top-level folder | For example ARC, STRUCT, MECH. This mirrors how content is organized in Pirros and saves a sorting pass later. |
4 | Export your tag list | Unifi can export a CSV of your library metadata, including tag assignments. |
Step 2: Decide Which Versions to Upload
This is the most important decision in the migration, and it needs to happen before anything reaches Pirros.
Unifi versions content by Revit year, so a single family typically comes down as the same filename in multiple year-based subfolders:
Louver-Fixed / 2023 / Louver-Fixed.rfa (marked as the base version)
Louver-Fixed / 2025 / Louver-Fixed.rfa
Recommendation: upload only the base version of each family — one file per family, one Revit year.
Pirros will give you a warning upon upload of "same-named" families to allow you to decide which family you would like to upload into pirros. When uploading in bulk, you can decide to upload the earlier Revit years for all of the files as the default "rule", but you can also go custom on this so for one family category, you decide you want the earlier revit year and for another, you decide you want the later Revit year.
We recommend keeping the earliest Revit year of that family on Pirros since it can easily be upgraded upon insertion into a later Revit year, but it cannot be downgraded. Pirros upgrades a family automatically the first time someone downloads it into a newer Revit version.
Step 3: Build a Upload Folder
Before anything touches Pirros, produce a folder library that includes all of the extracted families from UNIFI.
1 | Put all of the subfolders into one mass "parent" folder | Make sure all of your families from UNIFI are in one folder with a structure that you are comfortable with before you drop this into Pirros |
2 | Keep type catalogs alongside their families | If a family has a matching .txt type catalog, keep both files together so they upload as a pair and stay linked. |
3 | Upload the entire parent folder into the Pirros upload drop area | The easiest way to upload all of your families into Pirros is to drop the entire folder into the upload window. This has been done with thousands of families at once and it is the easiest to keep track of. |
4 | Select the project where you want to upload these families into Pirros (Select TYPICAL for the families that you consider you standard library) | Deciding on the project upload cannot be changed POST upload so make sure that you select the correct destination for your families. |
5 | Decide on how you want to handle the Family Conflicts | Create all as new = upload ALL families in your folder structure (any duplicate families with different Revit years will upload duplicates into Pirros) Custom = Based on duplicate family names found in your "parent" folder, you can decide which family version takes the place inside of Pirros. |
Step 4: System Families and Typical Details
System families don't come down as RFAs. They live inside a Revit project or template file, not in the Unifi family folders, so they won't be in the export you've been working with.
To bring them across, upload the RVT into Pirros and in the upload setting deselect the loadable families and only have the system families selected. This will load the system families only and leave the loadable families alone, since those are already coming from your folder export.
Many firms find most of their system families already exist in their office template and skip this step entirely and decide to just load their template into Pirros.
If that same file contains typical details as drafting views, make sure to select only the system families to upload in the "Upload Settings" and not the details/loadable families.
FAQ
Q: Can we automate the Unifi export?
A: No. Autodesk doesn't expose an API for bulk downloads, so the export has to be done manually through the Unifi interface. Plan for it to take a few days of one person's time.
Q: Should we upload both our Revit versions of each family?
A: No — upload the base version only. Pirros treats same-named families as duplicates regardless of Revit year, and a family upgrades automatically the first time someone downloads it into a newer version.
Q: How long does the upload itself take?
A: Much less time than the export. Families upload faster than details because the files are smaller — as a rough guide, ~3,000 families takes a few hours, and they appear one by one as soon as you hit upload.