diff --git a/docs/cli.rst b/docs/cli.rst
index 6482c46..f93fc57 100644
--- a/docs/cli.rst
+++ b/docs/cli.rst
@@ -876,6 +876,15 @@ If your file does not include this row, you can use the ``--no-headers`` option
 
 If you do this, the table will be created with column names called ``untitled_1`` and ``untitled_2`` and so on. You can then rename them using the ``sqlite-utils transform ... --rename`` command, see :ref:`cli_transform_table`.
 
+.. _cli_insert_lines:
+
+Inserting newline-delimited data
+================================
+
+If you have an unstructured file you can insert its contents into a table with a single ``line`` column containing each line from the file using ``--lines``. This can be useful if you intend to further analyze those lines using SQL string functions or :ref:`sqlite-utils convert <cli_convert>`::
+
+    $ sqlite-utils insert logs.db loglines logfile.log --lines
+
 .. _cli_insert_replace:
 
 Insert-replacing data
diff --git a/sqlite_utils/cli.py b/sqlite_utils/cli.py
index 319dee1..6d3f8eb 100644
--- a/sqlite_utils/cli.py
+++ b/sqlite_utils/cli.py
@@ -783,6 +783,8 @@ def insert_upsert_implementation(
             if detect_types:
                 tracker = TypeTracker()
                 docs = tracker.wrap(docs)
+    elif lines:
+        docs = ({"line": line.strip()} for line in decoded)
     elif convert:
         fn = _compile_code(convert, imports)
         docs = (fn(line) for line in decoded)
diff --git a/tests/test_cli_insert.py b/tests/test_cli_insert.py
index b01b2cf..2922a2f 100644
--- a/tests/test_cli_insert.py
+++ b/tests/test_cli_insert.py
@@ -322,3 +322,18 @@ def test_insert_alter(db_path, tmpdir):
         {"foo": "baz", "n": 2, "baz": None},
         {"foo": "bar", "baz": 5, "n": None},
     ] == list(db.query("select foo, n, baz from from_json_nl"))
+
+
+def test_insert_lines(db_path):
+    result = CliRunner().invoke(
+        cli.cli,
+        ["insert", db_path, "from_lines", "-", "--lines"],
+        input='First line\nSecond line\n{"foo": "baz"}',
+    )
+    assert 0 == result.exit_code, result.output
+    db = Database(db_path)
+    assert [
+        {"line": "First line"},
+        {"line": "Second line"},
+        {"line": '{"foo": "baz"}'},
+    ] == list(db.query("select line from from_lines"))