What the List Split utility does in VICIdial

A Lead list in VICIdial can grow large quickly, especially after a bulk import. Working with an oversized list creates two practical problems: the Basic Lead Management Tools page cannot operate on lists with more than 100,000 records, and a single giant list makes it harder to distribute work across teams or track performance by segment. The List Split utility solves both problems by dividing one list into multiple smaller lists of a size you choose.

What List Split actually changes

When you run List Split, VICIdial takes the source list and distributes its lead records into a series of new lists, each capped at the target size you specified. Each new list gets its own List ID Override — a distinct list ID — so it can be managed, activated, or deactivated independently. The lead records themselves are moved into the new lists; they are not duplicated. Their call history, status, custom field values, and Vendor lead code all carry over intact. What changes is only the list ID each record belongs to.

flowchart TD
  A[Source list: 90,000 leads] --> B[List Split: target size 30,000]
  B --> C[New List A: 30,000 leads]
  B --> D[New List B: 30,000 leads]
  B --> E[New List C: 30,000 leads]
  C --> F[Assign to Campaign 1]
  D --> G[Assign to Campaign 2]
  E --> H[Hold in reserve or assign later]

Why you would split a list

The most direct reason is to get under the 100,000-lead threshold that gates the Basic Lead Management Tools operations. If you have a 250,000-record list and want to bulk-delete a status segment, you need to split first, then operate on each sub-list separately.

Beyond that technical limit, smaller lists give you finer control over Campaign assignment. You can hand List A to one team and List B to another, track their conversion rates separately, and reactivate or retire each piece independently. If one segment performs poorly and you want to pause it, you deactivate that list without affecting the others. A List mix configuration in the campaign then controls how the dialer cycles through whichever sub-lists are active.

Splitting is also a useful step before a List reset. Resetting a list marks all its leads as callable again. If you want to reset only a portion of a large list — say, the first 30,000 records — split them out first, then reset that sub-list without touching the rest.

What List Split does not change

The source list is not automatically deleted or emptied after a split. How many records remain depends on whether the total divides evenly by your target size. If it does not, the last segment gets the remainder. All lead-level data — phone numbers, names, custom fields, call history, current status — is preserved exactly as it was. The split is a reorganization, not a transformation of the underlying records.

How the new list IDs behave

Each sub-list created by List Split is a fully independent list in VICIdial. You can set its name, caller ID, timezone restrictions, and Filter settings just like any other list. You can activate one sub-list and leave others inactive — the campaign will only dial from active lists. This makes List Split useful not just for getting under the record-count limit, but for staging work across time: activate List A this week, add List B next week when capacity opens up.

One consideration when splitting is List order. VICIdial dials through a list in the order records appear within it. When List Split divides a source list, the order of records is preserved within each sub-list. If the source list was sorted by entry date, geographic region, or some other import order, that order carries into the sub-lists. Keep this in mind if your campaign relies on a specific dialing sequence.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of running the utility, see how to split a VICIdial list. For the full picture of what bulk tools are available in VICIdial and when to use each one, read our VICIdial admin bulk tools guide.

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