How to import contacts into your Gmail address book
In the seven years that I have been using the internet, I have had about ten email addresses (excluding all the addresses I set up for junk emails), all with valuable contacts in the address book. I have now consolidated them all into my Gmail account - and if you want to do it too, it’s easier than you might think.
With the new and improved Gmail contact book, moving all your contacts into your Gmail now makes more sense than ever with the ability to add contact photographs and instant messaging ID’s, as well as having all emails and chat history attached to each contact profile. You probably think that this is a very simple process which doesn’t need blogging about but you’d be amazed how many people contact me and ask me about how to do this very straight-forward procedure.
To move contacts from one email address into Gmail, you need to have all the contacts arranged in what is called a CSV file (Comma Separated Values). If you use Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Yahoo or Hotmail, CSV files are offered when you choose the “export” option.
So just go to your current email program and look through the drop-down menus for an “export” option. It may be tucked away in the address book area but then again, like Outlook, it will be in the “File” drop-down list. When you have found the export option, just go through the process to make a CSV file. Save that CSV file to your computer hard-drive.
Then go into your Gmail contacts manager and in the bottom left hand corner, you’ll see an “import” link. Clicking on that link brings up this little menu :
I’ve just realised that since I am using a German browser, a German word has crept into the screenshot. “Durchsuchen” basically means to search for something. So just click that button, find your CSV file and then click the “import” button.
All of your contacts from the CSV list will now be added to your Gmail contact book. Generally I have personally not had so many problems with the formatting of imported contacts but sometimes you may notice a piece of information in the wrong field. But mostly, the information should be entered into Gmail correctly right away.
There is also an option in Gmail to export your contacts into a CSV file. I highly recommend making a backup of your Gmail contact book, especially in the wake of Gmail accidently disabling Gmail accounts. If you have to set up a new account suddenly, having a backup of your contacts on your hard-drive would be a lifesaver.
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This was a huge help for this limited techy. Thank you!
Ted
How do I map the Outlook Category to the GMail Groups?
Or is there any way to Group the Outlook Contacts on import from Outlook?
Please give me a direct email reply to holland@brown.org
Have followed all the instructions for importing a csv file from Outlook express. Clicking the contacts option does not show an import option just the last addresses communicated with.
Help
I have imported my outlook contacts using the method you described. All the contacts came across minus their home and business addresses. I checked the CSV file created by Outlook and all the data is there. It seems that the Gmail import function has missed/ignored the address data. Any ideas?
I was excited to move my contacts, but then saw that Gmail only allows ONE email address per contact. Almost everyone I know has a personal and work emails, and sometimes more.
@Stan : sorry, that’s not true. You can move everything. I’ve done it myself. Where did you get the one email address per person from?
Using Thunderbird, I did a Select All of my contacts, hit the export button, saved it as a Comma Separated file to my hard drive, then did the Import in google mail, selected the file from my hard drive, and this is the message I repeatedly received after trying several variations on the above process:
Al of the addresses in Thunderbird have both name and email address. Can you please tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks.
Robin
I honestly couldn’t tell you as I have never done the procedure from Thunderbird before. All I can suggest is that you try again in a few days as perhaps there may have been a glitch in Gmail.
Gmail also suggests editing your CSV file - https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78229
Or try asking in the Gmail Help Discussion Group to see if anyone else has encountered your problem - http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion
I NEED MY YAHOO ADDRESS BOOK EXPORTED TO GOOGLE. PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW CAN I DO THIS.
THANKS, BRIGITTE
Dear Sir,
I have two email IDs (both gmail). How do i migrate all my contacts from one gmail id to other.
Is this possible? Pleaes help me out in this. Thanks in adv.
I am following the instructions perfectly but I get an error message that says: “We were not able to import any of the contacts found in the uploaded file” and the import doesn’t happen.
I am saving the file as a csv (windows) file and I am saving it from my Outlook contacts.
Any advice?
I looked forward to setting up my G-mail account but soon discovered no one in design gave any thought to adding contacts into the address book without being a rocket scientist.
Will somebody please let me in on this top secret method!
What good is an e-mail if you can’t use it to send mail!
I did it easely between Outlook 2003 and Gmail.
I changed recently my laptop and bought Office 2007 with outlook 2007. The transfer doesn’t work goed anymore; I got the phone number in the name field !
With Outlook 2003, matching of field were done automatically without any manual intervention. With Outlook 2007, wrongly done and the contact list in Gmail is no more ‘usable’