Move content at scale without the scaffolding: Introducing Bulk Content Operations

When businesses evaluate enterprise content platforms, they usually focus on two things: how easily teams can create and manage content, and how well the platform handles high volume.

The second part is where the operational complexity shows up.

If a team needs to migrate thousands of entries, update a large catalog after a content model change, or keep several environments in sync, the real question isn’t just about storing content in a CMS. It’s about moving it efficiently and reliably without requiring engineers to build extra infrastructure.

With Bulk Content Operations, Contentful now supports this natively.

A dedicated operational layer for bulk content work

Most content management APIs are optimized for precision: creating, updating, and retrieving individual entries with fine-grained control. This model suits interactive authoring workflows and scales well for most day-to-day content operations.

But enterprise content estates rarely stay small. Catalogs expand across markets. Content models evolve and must be applied across hundreds of thousands of entries. Teams run increasingly complex multi-environment models that require reliable, repeatable sync. Content work outside the editor — in pipelines, migration programs, and automation workflows — has also grown, along with expectations for platform-level support.

We’ve heard this need consistently from the teams building on our platform. Contentful can support high-volume operations natively instead of leaving teams to build and maintain custom tooling.

Bulk Content Operations adds an asynchronous job model purpose-built for content work that standard API calls were not designed to handle.

(Note: Bulk Content Operations is a programmatic workflow for developers and platform engineers. It is distinct from the editor-facing Bulk Actions feature.)

Teams can now submit a single bulk job to import, update, delete, or export entries at scale. The system processes the job asynchronously and returns per-entry results when complete, including detailed outcomes for any failed entries. Failed entries do not block the job, and teams can retry only the failed parts.

Jobs can be tracked in two ways: by polling a status endpoint that retains data for seven days or by subscribing to webhook events triggered on job creation, completion, and failure. For teams running automated pipelines, webhooks are the cleaner option since job status integrates into existing workflows without adding polling.

The result is a content operations model that works like infrastructure should: teams submit work, track it asynchronously, and receive a clear report of outcomes.

Built to fit existing operational workflows

Enterprise teams evaluate a platform not only by what it can do, but by how well it integrates with the systems they already rely on.

Bulk Content Operations is designed with that in mind. The same job model works across the API, so teams can integrate bulk operations directly into migration tooling, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, or content automation workflows without changing how they operate. Webhook events connect job status to existing monitoring or alerting infrastructure.

The goal isn’t to introduce another operational surface. It’s to make large-scale content work a reliable capability within the platform teams already use.

How to use it

The API follows a single, consistent pattern across all supported operations. A bulk job is submitted via:

POST /bulk_operations/entries/{action}

In this path, {action} is one of create, update, delete, or export.

Importing or updating entries

For write operations, the flow is two steps: upload your file first, then trigger the bulk job.

Step 1: Upload the entries file

Send your JSON file to the Upload API. The file can contain up to 10,000 entries shaped to match the standard Content Management API (CMA) entry structure:

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The response returns an upload object with an ID you use in the next step:

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Step 2: Create the bulk job

Reference the upload ID in the bulk operation request:

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The API responds immediately with a 201 status and sys.status: "in_progress". From there, the orchestrator takes over.

Exporting entries

For export, instead of a file reference, you pass a query using the same filter syntax as the CMA:

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The system asynchronously generates a JSON file containing all matching entries, using the same job-tracking model as for write operations. Once the job status reaches completed, the export file is accessible via the job status endpoint; the response includes a direct reference to the generated file. The file is retained for seven days from job completion, so fetch and store it within that window if you need it downstream.

Tracking job status

Once submitted, jobs can be monitored by polling the status endpoint or, more practically for automated workflows, by subscribing to webhook events. Contentful sends notifications for job creation, completion, and failure so teams can integrate bulk job status directly into existing alerting and observability infrastructure.

When a job completes, the status response includes per-entry outcomes: which entries succeeded, which failed, and why. Failed entries can be retried individually without re-running the full job.

Where Bulk Content Operations helps most

The most immediate impact is on large-scale migrations and initial content ingestion.

Teams moving large volumes of content into Contentful — whether from a legacy content management system (CMS), product information management (PIM) system, or external data source — can now use a single, auditable job with per-entry visibility into what landed and what needs attention.

Beyond migrations, Bulk Content Operations supports ongoing work that previously required more custom engineering.

Content model changes that affect thousands of entries, taxonomy updates applied at catalog scale, and cross-environment sync as part of a structured release workflow all become repeatable, monitorable jobs rather than one-off engineering efforts.

Export follows the same pattern: pull large entry sets for downstream processing, external validation, or archiving, with the same job-based model and a consistent way to track what was generated and when.

What comes next

This release establishes the core API model for Bulk Content Operations. We’ll continue to expand Bulk Content Operations across more operation types, more surfaces, and deeper integrations with the workflows teams already rely on.

The API available today is the base for future Bulk Content Operations capabilities.

Bulk Content Operations is generally available to all Premium customers. To get started, read the Bulk Content Operations developer documentation.

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