Outlook contacts file. How to Import Contacts into Outlook

Included Microsoft Office By default, Outlook is included, designed to work with several emails at once, create calendars and notes, and maintain an address book. The address book functionality allows you to add, delete, import, group and edit the contacts in it.

Export and import contacts

If you have already used the address book in Outlook and have contacts in it, then you can upload them to separate file so that you can transfer it to another medium and not lose it if your computer breaks down. If you have a list of contacts in one of the formats supported by the program, you can quickly add them to Outlook using “Import Contacts”. Please note that different versions of the application perform the same tasks slightly differently, so instructions for Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016 are presented in a separate order.

Export contacts

Export contacts - selecting contacts already added to the program into a separate file with the further ability to transfer and edit this file.

Outlook 2013, 2016

Go to the "File" tab.
Open the “File” tab
Select the "Open and Export" block.
Select the “Open and Export” block
Run the Import and Export command.
Run the “Import and Export” command
Select one of the options: Export to file - creates a file in a format that Excel supports, or exports RSS feeds to an OPML file supported by Excel itself. Outlook program. From an Excel supported file, you will also be able to download contacts to Outlook.
Selecting the export type
Click on "Comma Separated Value".
Select the “Comma Separated Value” format
Specify the path to the folder in which it will be saved created file.
Specify the path for the saved file
Specify the file name and leave its type unchanged.
Name the file with contacts
Wait while the program automatically exports your contacts to a file.
We are waiting for the contacts to be exported
Run the created file to ensure that all contacts were saved successfully.
Open the file with exported contacts

Outlook 2010

Outlook 2007

Importing contacts

If you have a list of contacts in a separate file, email, or program, you can quickly transfer them to Outlook. In the same way you can import from email addresses and letters.

Outlook 2013, 2016

Open the "File" tab.
Open the “File” section
Go to the "Open and Export" block.
Go to the “Open and Export” block
Click on the "Import and Export" button.
Use the “Import and Export” button
Select one of the import options. Which one to use depends on where you are trying to import contacts from.
Selecting the import type
Set the file type to Comma Separated Values.
Select the “Comma Separated Values” format
Write down the path to the file. In the operation parameters, choose what to do with duplicate contacts: replace, create, or not import.
Specify the path to the file with imported contacts
Determine in which section the imported contacts will be saved.
Choosing where to import contacts
Confirm the import by clicking the "Finish" button.
Click the “Finish” button
To make sure that all contacts were transferred correctly, click on the “People” icon and view them.
Checking contacts in the “People” section

Outlook 2010

Outlook 2007

Video: Exporting and importing contacts in Outlook

Where is the Outlook Address Book located?

All information found in Outlook is saved in separate files that can be copied or deleted. You can find these files in the following path:

C:\Users\account_name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook;
C:\Users\account_name\Roaming\Local\Microsoft\Outlook;
C:\Users\username\Documents\Outlook Files;
C:\Users\account_name\My Documents\Outlook Files;
C:\Documents and Settings\account_name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook;
C:\Documents and Settings.

For different versions operating system and Outlook paths may differ.

Creating an Address Book

If you have a large number contacts, then best way organize them for quick and easy convenient search- create address book. By creating address books, you can group your contacts into folders.

Outlook 2010, 2013, 2016

Outlook 2007

Adding contacts

Adding contacts is a core feature of Outlook, so it hasn't changed much in different versions programs. You can add a contact manually or import it from an email or file.

Add a contact from an email message

Adding contacts from mail is carried out using import, which was described in detail above. During the process, you need to determine where the contacts will be imported from. Select the option “Import Internet mail account settings” or “Import Internet addresses and mail.”

You can send contact details to other people Microsoft data Outlook (yours or someone else’s) in vCard format (VCF file). When the recipient opens the VCF file attached to the received message, a contact form opens with the contact's details.
Microsofthttps://support.office.com/ru-ru/article/%D0%9E%D1%82%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0-% D0%B8-%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%85%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%BA% D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2-%D0%B2-%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80% D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5-vCard-94a17a6f-105f-46c7–9308–33658c1c2690

Create a contact group

Creating a group of contacts will help you organize and sort them according to certain criteria.

Outlook 2010, 2013, 2016

Outlook 2007

Deleting contacts

If you find that your list contains extra contact, then you can remove it by following these steps:

Outlook - convenient program for people who work with a large number of contacts. Using it, you can customize the list of existing contacts in detail, organize them, add new ones and delete unnecessary ones. At any time, you can download all the information from Outlook into a separate file so that in the future you can download it back or to another computer.

If you have a lot of business or personal contact information stored in a spreadsheet, you can import it directly into Outlook 2013 or Outlook 2016 for Windows with little preparation. There are three main actions.

Save an Excel workbook as a CSV file.

Import contacts.

Comparison Excel columns with the corresponding fields in Outlook.

Step 1: Save the Excel workbook as a CSV file

Outlook can only import comma-separated value (CSV) files, not multi-sheet workbooks, so you need to save in step 1 Excel workbook as a CSV file. Below is how to do this.

in the book, click the sheet with the contact information you want to import;

select a location to save the file;

In the window File type select CSV (comma delimited) (*.csv) and press the button Save.

will appear Excel message: "Only the current sheet can be saved in the selected file type." This is due to the limitations of the CSV file; nothing will happen to the original book (XLSX file).

Click the button OK.

Click Yes to have Excel save the current worksheet as a CSV file. The original workbook (.xlsx file) will close.

Close the CSV file.

You're done with Excel and can now begin importing into Outlook.

Note: Some locales use different list item delimiters by default. For example, the German language uses a semicolon as a delimiter. However, Outlook does not support semicolons as a field separator. For this reason, you may need to replace the semicolons in the CSV file with commas before moving on to the next step.

Step 2: Import contacts into Outlook

Step 3: Mapping the Columns in the CSV File to Outlook Contact Fields

More information

To create new folder in Outlook, right-click your contacts folder, click Create a folder OK.

Go to the File tab on the Ribbon and click Open menu.

Click the Import tab. The Import and Export Wizard opens.

Select an item Import from another program or file and press the button Next.

Select an item and click the button Next.

Review, navigate to the folder specified in step 3 and double-click the file to highlight it.

If you are importing to a new folder because there are no duplicates, the options on the Options tab are not applicable. If not imported into a new folder, select the most logical selection. Click the button Next.

Select the Contacts folder or another type of contact folder you created and click Next.

field matching and check them.

If you are importing to an existing contacts folder, skip to step 3.

To create a new folder in Outlook, click Contacts, right-click your contacts folder and click Create a folder, enter a name for the new folder and click OK.

On the menu File select item Import and export.

Select Import from another program or file and click the button Next.

Select an item Comma Separated Values (Windows) and press the button Next.

If the file that is displayed is not correct file, press the button Review, navigate to the folder you noted in step 3 and double-click the file to highlight it.

If you are importing to a new folder because there are matches, the settings on the Options tab are not relevant. Otherwise, select the most logical selections. Click the button Allow creation of duplicates if you are not sure and click the button Next.

Click the Contacts folder or another contacts folder of the type you created to import and click Next.

If you are not sure whether to correctly map the column names in the first row of your spreadsheet to the Outlook fields, click field matching and check them.

Note: If field matching is not available, you have selected a contact folder type to import into. Click the Back button and select the desired folder. If you are satisfied with the comparison, click the button OK to close the dialog box" Field Matching" and press the button Ready.

Over time, with frequent use of e-mail, most users develop a list of contacts with whom they correspond. And while the user is working with one email client, he can freely use this very list of contacts. However, what should you do if you need to switch to another email client - Outlook 2010?

To avoid having to re-create your contact list, Outlook has useful feature, which is called “Import”. We will look at how to use this function in this manual.

So, if you need to transfer contacts to Outlook 2010, you should use the Contacts Import/Export Wizard. To do this, go to the “File” menu and click on “Open”. Next, on the right side we find the “Import” button and click it.

Next, the Import/Export Wizard window opens in front of us, which lists possible actions. Since we are interested in importing contacts, here you can select both the “Import of Internet addresses and mail” and “Import from another program or file”.

If you selected the “Import Internet addresses and mail” item, then in this case the import/export wizard will offer you two options - import from the contacts file of the Eudora application, and import from Outlook 4, 5 or 6 versions, as well as Windows mail.

Select the desired source and check the boxes next to the required data. If you are going to import only contact information, then you just need to check the “Import address book” checkbox (as shown in the screenshot above).

Once you have chosen the appropriate action, click the “Finish” button and wait for the process to complete.

As soon as all the data is imported, “Import results” will appear (see screenshot above), where statistics will be displayed. Also, here you need to click the “Save in Inbox” button or just “OK”.

Import from another program or file

If you selected the “Import from another program or file” item, you will be able to download contacts from both mail client Lotus Organizer and data from Access, Excel or a regular text file. Import from previous versions Outlook and contact management systems ACT!.

By selecting the right way import, click on the “Next” button and here the wizard prompts you to select a data file (if you are importing from previous versions of Outlook, the wizard will try to find the data on its own). Also, here you need to select one of three actions for duplicates.

The next step is to specify a storage location for the imported data. Once you specify the location where the data will be downloaded, you can move on to the next step.

Here the Import/Export Wizard asks you to confirm your actions.

At this stage, you can check the boxes for the actions that you want to perform. If you change your mind about importing something, then just uncheck the box next to the action you need.

Also at this stage you can configure the correspondence of file fields with Outlook fields. To do this, just drag the names of the file fields (left list) to the corresponding field in Outlook (right list). Once you're done, click "OK."

When all the settings are done, click “Finish” and Outlook will begin importing data.

So, we looked at how to import contacts into Outlook 2010. Thanks to the built-in wizard, this is quite easy to do. Thanks to this wizard, you can import contacts both from a specially prepared file and from previous versions of Outlook.

The Outlook Import and Export Wizard makes it easy to import contacts from a CSV file.

In Outlook 2013 or Outlook 2016, at the top of the ribbon, select the tab File.

If there is no element on the ribbon File, you do not have Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2013. In this case, you can find import instructions for your version of Outlook in the article What version of Outlook do I have?

Select Open and export > Import and export. The Import and Export Wizard will launch.

Select Import from another program or file and press the button Next.

Select an option Comma separated values and press the button Next.

In the dialog box Import a file Locate the contacts file and double-click it.

Select one of the following options to specify how Outlook handles duplicate contacts:

Replace duplicates when importing. If the contact is in Outlook and in your file, Outlook removes the contact information and uses the information in the file. You should select this value if the contact information in the file is more complete or up-to-date than in Outlook.

Allow creation of duplicates. For contacts that are present in both Outlook and the file, Outlook creates duplicates: one with the original Outlook data and one with the data imported from the file. You can later merge this information and remove duplicates. This option is the default.

Do not import duplicates. If the contact is in Outlook and in a file, Outlook retains the contact information and removes the data from the file. This option should be selected if the contact information in Outlook is more complete or up-to-date than what is in the file.

Scroll the list if necessary Folder selection up, select folder Contacts and press the button Next. If you use multiple email accounts, select the Contacts folder under the one you want.

Click the button Finish(Ready).

Outlook will immediately begin importing your contacts. When the import progress bar disappears, the import is complete.

To view your contact list, at the bottom of Outlook, click the icon.

To import contacts into your account Outlook on the web use a comma-separated value (CSV) file.

Advice: To receive best results use a UTF-8 encoded CSV file. This encoding is suitable for all languages and alphabets.

Select version

The instructions vary slightly depending on whether you're using classic or new version of Outlook on the web. Select your version of Outlook on the web to see the appropriate instructions.

Note: If the organization has placed a logo on the toolbar, the interface may differ from the above.

Instructions for the new version of Outlook on the web

Instructions for classic Outlook on the web

Why should I care about UTF-8 encoding?

Typically, when importing contacts, there is no need to delve into technical aspects storing text in a CSV file. However, if your contact information contains characters that are not in the English alphabet, such as Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, or Japanese, you may experience problems importing your contacts. Therefore, when exporting, contacts should be saved in a file with UTF-8 encoding, if this option is available.

If contacts cannot be exported in UTF-8 encoding, you can convert the exported CSV file using Excel or third party applications. Instructions will vary depending on the application and its version.

Convert a CSV file to UTF-8 encoding using Microsoft Excel 2016

In Excel, create a new one blank document(book).

On the menu Data select item From a text/CSV file. Select the exported CSV file (you may need to select a file type to see it Text files(....csv)). Click the button Import.

In the dialog box that opens, in the field File encoding choose an encoding that will ensure the text displays correctly, e.g. Cyrillic (Windows 1251), and press the button Download.

Make sure that the symbols are displayed correctly in Excel.

On the tab File select item Save as. Enter a file name and select a file type CSV UTF-8 (comma delimited) (*.csv).

When exporting contacts from Outlook their copy saved as a CSV or other file type, the contents of which can then be imported into another application.

Open Outlook on your computer and go to the File.

If there is no element on the ribbon File in the top left corner, you don't have Outlook on your computer. In this case, you can find export instructions for your version of Outlook in the article What version of Outlook do I have.

Select teams Open and export > Import and export.

Select an item Export to file.

Comma separated values.

THIS ACTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT, especially if you are using a friend's computer. Scroll the list if necessary Select a folder to export up and select the folder in your account section Contacts. Click the button Next.

Click the button Review, give the file a name and click the button OK.

Check which folder the files will be saved in and click the button Next.

Ready Import and export disappears.

Locate the new .csv file on your computer and open it in Excel to verify that your contacts have been exported. Most likely, it will have many empty cells. This is fine.

If you're using Outlook on a friend's computer, you can now remove your account from their version of Outlook. Here's how to do it.

In Outlook on your computer, select Commands File > Setting up accounts > Setting up accounts.

Select the account you want to delete and click the button Delete.

Click the button Close.

You can now import contacts copied to a CSV file to another computer running Outlook for Windows or to another email service.

Select version

The instructions vary slightly depending on whether you're using classic or new version of Outlook on the web. Select your version of Outlook on the web to see the appropriate instructions.

Note: If the organization has placed a logo on the toolbar, the interface may differ from the above.

Instructions for the new version of Outlook on the web

Instructions for classic Outlook on the web

At the top of the Outlook 2010 ribbon, open the File.

If there is no element on the ribbon File, you do not have Outlook 2010. In this case, you can find import instructions for your version of Outlook in the article What version of Outlook do I have?

Options.

In the Outlook Options window, select Additionally.

In the section Export select Export.

In the window Import and Export Wizard select Export to file and press Next.

Select desired type export to the field Create file next type . The most commonly used format Comma Separated Values (Windows), also called a CSV file. Then click the button Next.

If you plan to use the exported contacts in another copy of Outlook, select Outlook Data File (.pst).

In the section Select a folder to exportscroll up the list, if required, and then select the folder containing the contacts you want to export. Once completed, click the button Next.

Note: If you don't choose to export to an Outlook data file (.pst file), you can only export one folder at a time.

Click the button OK.

In the dialog box Export to file click the button Next.

To start exporting contacts, click the button Ready. Upon completion Outlook export does not display messages, but the field Import and export disappears.

When the export is complete, click the button OK to close the Outlook Options window.

Open the folder where you saved your contact list (for example, the Documents folder).

If you exported your contacts to a .csv file, view it in Excel to see what was exported from Outlook. Most likely, it will have many empty cells. This is fine.

It is generally recommended to close the file without saving changes. Otherwise, the file formatting may be broken and you will not be able to use it for import. If this happens, you can always export again and create a new file.

You can use Excel to update the data in a CSV file. For tips on working with your contact list in Excel, see Create and edit CSV files.

For information about importing contacts into Outlook 2016, see