I’ve seen several posts asking how to copy multiple tasks at once, but the answers are usually just to copy the names of the tasks and then manually add the subtasks. I don’t know if the feature request has been submitted, but I would really appreciate if there was an option to copy multiple tasks (including their subtasks) at once. Our standard templates have several tasks with several subtasks, and we’d like the option to quickly copy these tasks into an already existing project. Having this feature would save us tons of time and be really appreciated.
4 Likes
Hi @Brian_Fanelli - I’d recommend having these tasks with subtasks live in a template project that you copy over (You can have the tasks live in multiple projects).
You can select which details of the tasks you want to copy over and can then add all of the copied-in-bulk tasks with their subtasks at once (via multi-select) to the appropriate project - Task actions: create, move, duplicate, and more | Product guide • Asana Product Guide
Hi @Shannon_McNeil, thanks for the quick reply! Unfortunately this is not the feature we are looking for.
We have template projects set up, that we’ll often use to copy as a new project, so all the assignees, collaborators, subtasks, etc remain in place. The issue we come across is when we have a specific set of tasks that are common to projects, but we would like to duplicate INTO a project that already exists.
To give a little more info on exactly what I mean and what we’re looking for:
Our company provides a service to clients, and many of these clients are recurring. When they come back, they have samples that will need to go through the same pipeline, and essentially be treated as an independent project. We prefer that each client name be the project, so that within a project, we’ll have subprojects in a layout like this:
Client A June ABCD Samples:
-standard task 1, with subtasks and other metadata
-standard task 2, with subtasks and other metadata
-standard task 3, with subtasks and other metadata
-standard task 4, with subtasks and other metadata
-…
Client A July EFGH Samples:
-standard task 1, with subtasks and other metadata
-standard task 2, with subtasks and other metadata
-standard task 3, with subtasks and other metadata
-standard task 4, with subtasks and other metadata
-…
If we were to split these into separate projects, then we could use the template feature, sure, but we would then have way too many projects, and it would be a bit difficult to keep track of how many projects we have going on for a given client at a given time. And we find it very helpful being able to look at all the work we’re doing for Client X at any given time.
What we currently have to do, since there is not a multiple copy feature:
Currently, we have to go to our template project, and for each individual task, we go through the steps of:
1.click on task
2.make a copy of task
3.check to include additional associated info
4.select all of these new copied tasks
5.add the project tag of the new one we’d like them to go to
6.remove the project tag of the current template they belong to, so that the template is cleaned up for later
What we are requesting and why it would save us tons of time:
-Implement a multiple select and copy feature (it could be either to duplicate the tasks to a new project, or to just duplicate within the same project)
1.When Client A comes back with new samples for August IJKL, we can just multi-select the tasks in our template, and click “duplicate tasks” and move them to “Client A” project.
2.from there all I’d have to do is add a header for the subproject “Client A August IJKL” and we’d be done
This would save us many steps of extra clicks, and ensure that none of the tasks get missed or copied incorrectly. I’ve also seen several other people posting for features like this, but so far the responses I’ve seen to them are info relating to how to multiple-select tasks, and info on how to utilize templates, separately. What would be awesome is if these two could be combined.
9 Likes
Thanks for clarifying, @Brian_Fanelli. We’ll pass this feedback along to our product team.
As a potential workaround, you could have tasks for each client also live in a “standard tasks to copy over” project (since tasks can be a part of more than one project) and then you could copy over the subset of tasks which live in both projects as a quicker way to copy multiple tasks.
We often use tasks as templates within a project at our company. For example, we have a TEMPLATE product request task, and we duplicate that task to have the right template into which to fill all information that needs to be logged for a product request. It is very handy. However, the duplicate task step takes significant processing time, which really disrupts the workflow and adds up to a signifcant amount of time wasted. If we could duplicate a variable number of tasks when duplicateing, so to make 5x or 10x copies of the task at once, it would make Asana more powerful, efficient and valuable for us.
10 Likes
Welcome 
As a workaround you could “prepare” several duplicated tasks to save time. You duplicate the task a few times. Then duplicate the project and move back the tasks from the second project into the first one. And again… Quickly you’ll have a whole batch of tasks to use immediately.
@Marie someone else from the Community had the exact same request today, maybe we can merge the threads 
Thanks for the mention @Bastien_Siebman; I’ve gone ahead and merged this thread with Create multiple tasks copies at once
Are there any updates on this? How to copy multiple tasks at the same time?
2 Likes
We run into this quite a bit.
For example, in development, we update website plugins on a regular basis, however we cannot schedule/repeat tasks as plugin version release dates are unknown. The task details remain the same, other than the date and project, for a plugin. The same plugin is updated in 10 themes[project], and so we are taking numerous clicks/steps to duplicate up to 10x per plugin.
That is 5 clicks/steps x 10 themes = 50 clicks to duplicate 1 task.
We manage 30+ plugins 
Looking forward to a future feature that will help speed up this process.
2 Likes
I think this is a much faster workaround, until Asana delivers the multiple-task-copy feature you’re asking for. The approach is basically to house your set of tasks within a single parent task so that you only have to duplicate one task, add it to the destination project, then promote the subtasks to top-level tasks.
One-time setup
- Make a task called Template Parent
- Add subtasks to Template Parent for each task in the set of tasks to be duplicated. Include their metadata and subtasks, which in this configuration will actually be sub-subtasks.
To duplicate (do these steps only once regardless of how many subtasks)
- Click on Template Parent
- Duplicate task, and in dialog carefully set checkboxes–if your subtasks or sub-subtasks have due dates then check the Due Dates checkbox, regardless of the parent task not having a Due Date
- Click the toast message in bottom right corner to open Duplicate of Template Parent in the detail pane
- Add to project: Add task Duplicate of Template Parent to the project where you ultimately want the set of tasks
- Click on that project pill to go to that project
- Click on the task Duplicate of Template Parent
- Select all the subtasks and drag them from right side detail pane to left side tasks pane
- Delete task Duplicate of Template Parent
Hope that helps,
Larry
3 Likes
Jumping in here to say I would adore this feature. I often have many tasks with similar subtasks, and wish I could duplicate one task, say, 18 times at once — all I would need to do then is change the name and individual due dates. Right now, it is cumbersome to individually duplicate a template task 18 times.
5 Likes
It seems like everyone has the same problem, they want to mass select tasks that already have information set on them, and copy them to a new project. Since you can drag these tasks from one project to another (performing a MOVE function), if Asana can just add a modifier key (option, command, ?) that would allow us to COPY instead of move. Microsoft Outlook has a similar feature, you can drag an meeting from one day/time to another day/time. But if you hold down a modifier key (I think option), it will create a copy instead of just moving it.
I have tried every way conceivable for copying multiple tasks into projects. Templates only work if the project can be fully templated. But our projects have 5 different teams all working on the same project, and all require different workflows. It’s easy to setup, but I just can’t come up with a way to mass copy/paste tasks while retaining custom field and subtask information.
The best method so far I have found is:
- Create a template of “parent tasks”… for me I call these the deliverables
- Each parent task has it’s own workflow of subtasks, and those subtasks may have subtasks as well.
- Copy the parent task
- Change the project associated with the parent task to the new project.
- Go to the new project and change the name of the parent task to reflect what you want.
- Promote the subtasks to the task list
6a. option 1 is to use the search to identify all the subtasks in that new project (assuming you have enough metadata in the custom fields to isolate these tasks), and then add these subtasks using the “add to project” function.
6b. option 2 is to just grab all the subtasks and drag them to the task list. But this means they cannot easily return to the subtask area (you have to move them one-by-one if you want to put them back at any point)
That’s just too many steps to do something that should just be a copy/paste using a modifier key (dragging and dropping) or using a “copy all tasks” and allowing us to select the current or different project for the pasting of the tasks.
Sorry for the long rambling post… but this current system seems super inefficient.
@Millor_Machado you might have a solution for this isn’t it?
@Bastien_Siebman thanks for involving me!
@Francesco_Alessi, I’m working on a tasks library that you can create that add standard tasks to new or existing projects. The first version doesn’t have custom fields nor dates, just the names and descriptions of the tasks and subtasks.
Would this solution help you?
1 Like
Well, having subtask info carried over would be 1/2 the battle, so that would help. But I really would like all the info, including custom fields, to carry over.
As long as I can pull a list of tasks into a project and have all those tasks in some kind of group so I can select them all at once, I can then add the custom fields fairly easily. I only have one custom field that would require me to select chunks of tasks to set its information (which is phase/stage).
So maybe your solution would get me 1/2 way there.
Thanks for reply!
That’s great! I’m sending you a private message so we can go further in this demo about the library.
I would love to learn more about this feature!
This won’t solve all your needs, but probably is an improvement.
Instead of your template of deliverables as parent tasks, make each deliverable its own project.
For each time you need a new copy of a deliverable:
- Duplicate Project for the deliverable into a new, temporary project
- Change the project membership of all tasks to the true destination project
- Delete the temporary project
See also this (and the earlier posts in the thread for context) for a related idea:
Hope that helps,
Larry
Hi Larry,
I have since moved to a new process where I have template projects that contain the parent deliverable task, as well as child sub-tasks (added to the project), these all have dates of say 2030. Then I duplicate the parent task which adds all the subtasks back to the project with no due date. Then I just the project home to the project I need. It’s basically 2 steps after you build the template projects.
1 Like
Would like to be able to multi-select multiple tasks and copy them along with their timelines and dependencies, owners, etc. - and paste them to set up the next Section grouping
1 Like