Microsoft Outlook - How to Copy Contacts

Microsoft Outlook has a terrific personal information manager, known as the Contacts folder or Contacts Manager. The user tracks a broad range of information about each contact including: name, address, phone numbers, email addresses, web site URLs, company information, personal information, and much more. How can you copy Outlook Contacts?

Some examples of the need to copy your Outlook contacts folder, and the type of file needed:

• You want to add or share your contact file contents to another users contact file. You will want a pst file.
• You want to move or copy the contact file to Outlook on a new computer (contact migration). You will want a pst file.
• You have a web-mail service that you use but want your Outlook contacts in the web-mail address book. You will probably need a csv file; check the Import feature on the web-mail service.
• You need to export contacts into a file that can be imported into a database, like MS Access. You will probably want a csv file.
• You want to save Outlook contacts and related information in a standalone file that you can carry with you, like an Excel file. You will want an xls file.

Outlook includes an Import/Export Wizard that makes the task easy. We are using Outlook 2007 in this example nad there are screen shots of each step, below.

• Click on File, and then select Import and Export from the sub-menu.
• Select “Export to a file.”
• Select the file type: the most commonly used are pst, csv and xls (see above examples).
• Select the Contacts folder as your source. Note that the Import/Export Wizard allows copying all of the pst file, or just one folder like Contacts, or Calendar, or Inbox. You can also apply a filter to fine tune the selection of data.
• Set the destination for the exported file; common choices are your Documents folder, your Desktop, or a USB drive.
• After you click Finish, you have the choice to add a password. Click OK to generate the file. Now go to your target (e.g. another PC, web-mail account, a database) and Import the file. If the target is another Outlook account, simply use the Import/Export Wizard and follow the above steps, except to choose Import from another file, and select the appropriate file type.

What else can you do?

There are some things you can do to keep your Outlook information, and your Outlook pst file in top notch shape:

• Setup an automatic backup of your Outlook information.
  
• Use the Outlook utility, Scanpst, to scan and fix some errors that creep into your Outlook pst file.
  
• Clean house periodically. The leaner your pst file, the safer your data. Dump your trash. Delete useless old mail.
  
• Move saved email out of outlook, and into windows file folders. This way you can save old stuff, but get it out of your Outlook pst file.
• Set up an Out Of Office message.
  
• Set your archive options to move important but old stuff into a separate pst file.

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