Import or Export Contacts in Outlook

A. Summary:

You can import into your Outlook Contacts from another file or program, or you can export your Outlook Contacts to other programs or files such as Access, Excel, Lotus Organizer, etc.

B. Key Points:

· Import or export Outlook Contact information by going to the File menu in Outlook and clicking on Import and Export

· You will have choices on how to handle duplicate names when importing a file into Contacts

· You can export Contacts to files not listed in the Wizard by selecting Comma Separated Values or Tab Separated Values as your file type

· For corrections, updates, or clarifications on this Star Point, please email Paul Lor

C. Details:

Your Contacts folder in Outlook stores email addresses, street addresses, different phone numbers and any other information you want to save for your business contacts. Importing or exporting your Outlook Contacts information to another program or file is easy. You can import/export Contacts information from or to programs like Access, Excel, Act!, Lotus Organizer, your personal Address book in Outlook, etc. You can also import or export your Contacts to and from character-delimited files such as files with comma-separated values (CSV files) or tab-separated values files.

Import Data into Outlook Contacts

1. From the File menu click on Import and Export.

2. Select Import from another program or file and click Next.

3. Choose a file type to be imported into. For example, if you have your information stored in an Excel spreadsheet, select “Microsoft Excel” from the list and click Next.

4. Choose the file to be imported. You can click Browse to get to your file.

5. You can choose how you want the import to handle duplicates, since you may have a name in your Contacts that is the same as one in your import file: you can replace the Contacts name with the name in the import file, allow duplicates to be created, or don’t import duplicates. Check your desired option and click Next.

6. Select a destination folder, usually, Contacts. Click Next.

7. Click Finish to start importing data.

Export Contacts from Outlook to Another Program or File

1. From the File menu click on Import and Export.

2. Select Export to a file and click Next.

3. Select the file type that you want to export to, such as Excel or Access. If you want to use the file in Word or PowerPoint, or export to a program not listed, choose either Tab Separated Values or Comma Separated Values. Click Next.

4. Select the folder to be exported, in this case Contacts. Click Next.

5. Choose the location and filename where you want to save the exported file to.

6. Click Next and then click Finish to start exporting.