How to Migrate Contacts from Outlook to Google Apps Email

If you have a new email account via Google Apps, or a personal Gmail account, you might want to import all your old contacts from your Outlook program on your desktop or laptop computer so that you can use this list when accessing webmail, or sending mail via other devices.

The instructions below will allow you to export your contacts from Outlook, edit them in a spreadsheet (and save a copy) and then import them into Gmail – or Google Apps based email.

1) Exporting From Outlook:

  1. Go to File -> Export;
  2. Select the “Contacts to a list (tab-delimited text)” radio button;
  3. Note where you’ve saved that file.

2) In Excel (or Calc, or another spreadsheet software):

  1. Open Excel, then open the file you saved earlier;
  2. Excel will prompt you with the Text Import Wizard. Click through ensuring that Tab is the selected Delimiter;
  3. Since the export isn’t perfect, it is worth checking everything is where it should be;
  4. Now save the file as a CSV file: click File -> Save As. Select Comma Separated Values (.csv) as the Format (near the top of that list), and save;
  5. Note where you’ve saved that file.

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3) In Google Apps / Gmail:

  1. Navigate to the Contacts section via Gmail or the navigation menu at the top;
  2. Click the More menu (with the down-arrow next to it) and select Import;
  3. Use the Choose File button to select the CSV file you saved in the last section, then click Import;

Note: if you need to edit your CSV file and re-import to Google Contacts, it’s best to delete all of the contacts from Google before performing the import again.

This is because Google doesn’t overwrite the original contacts, but creates new contacts, which will create duplicates in most cases.

If you’d like to get some assistance, or would like to setup email via Google Apps for your business, please don’t hesitate to contact Silicon Dales to discuss your options.

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