The fast way: paste it
- In Google Sheets, select the column of names — including the header if it has one.
- Copy.
- Paste into the names box on Spinnza.
A single column lands straight on the wheel. If you copied more than one column, the paste opens the same column picker a file import uses, so you can choose which one holds the names and which holds bonus entries.
The tidy way: export a CSV
- File → Download → Comma Separated Values (.csv).
- Drag the file onto the import area, or press Import list.
- Choose the name column, check the preview, and import.
Things that trip people up
- Sheets exports every visible column. Pick the right one rather than deleting columns first.
- A column of numbers loses leading zeros in any spreadsheet. If your usernames look like 0012345, format that column as plain text before exporting.
- Blank rows are counted and skipped, and you are told how many.
If the sheet is Google Form responses
A linked responses sheet has a Timestamp column first, then one column per question, and often an email column Forms added itself. The name column is rarely column A, so check the samples in the picker rather than accepting the first guess.
Forms also lets the same person submit repeatedly unless you limited it to one response per account. Those extra rows look exactly like earned bonus entries, so decide which they are before you import: if your rules said one entry per person, turn on combine; if extra actions earned extra entries, leave them.
Tidy the column before you copy it
Two minutes in a helper column saves an argument later. In an empty column next to your names, put =TRIM(A2) and fill down — that removes the leading and trailing spaces that make “alex ” and “alex” look like two different people. If you want capitalisation ignored as well, =LOWER(TRIM(A2)) does both, though Spinnza already matches case-insensitively unless you tell it not to.
Then copy the helper column rather than the original. Delete it afterwards if you like; the wheel already has what it needs.
When to stop pasting and export instead
Pasting is fine for a few hundred rows. Past a few thousand, a browser copy of a very long selection gets slow and sometimes truncates silently, which is the worst failure mode available — you would be drawing from part of your list without knowing. For a big sheet, download the CSV and import the file, where the row count in the preview tells you exactly how many entries arrived.
The file is read in your browser. Nothing about the sheet is uploaded.