Import contacts

You can bring your address book from another app or provider into a mailbox's contacts in the webmail. Export it there as a vCard (.vcf) or CSV (.csv) file, then import that file. Your old app isn't changed, and nothing is deleted anywhere.

Export your contacts from the old appCopy Anchor Link

Choose vCard when the app offers it: it keeps more detail than CSV. Every app below can export all your contacts in one file.

• Google Contacts: open contacts.google.com, choose Export in the menu on the left, pick the contacts (or all of them) and vCard (for iOS Contacts), then Export. Google CSV works too.
• Outlook.com: in Outlook on the web, open People, choose Manage contacts then Export contacts, pick All contacts and Export. You get a CSV file.
• Outlook for Windows: choose File → Open & Export → Import/Export → Export to a file → Comma Separated Values, then pick your Contacts folder. If the import later says the file isn't UTF-8, see If the file is refused.
• Apple Contacts on a Mac: select the contacts (press Command-A for all), then choose File → Export → Export vCard.
• iCloud: on icloud.com, open Contacts, select the contacts, then choose Export vCard from the menu.
• Thunderbird: open the Address Book, right-click the address book you want and choose Export, then pick vCard or CSV.

Other apps usually have an Export command in their contacts or address book menu.

Import the fileCopy Anchor Link

1. Sign in to the webmail with the mailbox the contacts belong to, and open Contacts.
2. Open the ⋯ menu above the contact list and choose Import contacts.
3. Choose Choose a file and pick your .vcf or .csv file.
4. A vCard file is imported straight away. For a CSV file, check the columns first (below), then choose Import contacts.
5. The window shows what happened: how many contacts were added, merged into ones you have, already there, skipped, or left out because the mailbox is full.

A file can be up to 5 MB and hold up to 5,000 contacts. For a bigger address book, export it in parts (for example by label or group) and import each one. The mailbox's own limit on contacts still applies (see Contacts).

We read names, email addresses, phone numbers, company, notes, birthday and labels. Photos, addresses, links and anything else in the file are left out, and the file itself isn't kept: it's read once and only the contacts are saved, in your mailbox's address book.

Check which column holds what (CSV)Copy Anchor Link

A CSV file is a table, and every app names its columns a little differently. Before importing, the webmail lists each column of your file with a few example values from its first rows, and the field it will fill:

• Columns we recognise already have a field picked: first name, last name, full name, email, phone, company, notes, birthday or labels. Several email, phone or label columns all count.
• Columns we don't recognise say Don't import. If one holds something useful, pick the field it should fill (for example a column called "Team" as Company).
• To leave a column out, choose Don't import.

Birthdays are read when they're written like 1990-07-04 (or --07-04 without a year); others are left out. Labels can be several in one column, separated by commas or semicolons.

How merging worksCopy Anchor Link

Importing never creates a second card for someone you already have, and never changes what you've written yourself:

• A contact whose email address is already on one of your contacts (capital letters don't matter) is merged into it. Only empty details are filled in: more email addresses and phone numbers, a company, notes, a birthday, labels, or a name if it had none. Nothing that's there is changed or removed.
• The same goes for the same person appearing twice in one file: the second fills in what the first left empty.
• A contact without an email address is skipped when you already have someone with the same full name and the same phone number.
• If a contact adds nothing new, it counts as already in your contacts.

New contacts go into My contacts. You can import the same file again safely: it adds nothing twice.

If the file is refusedCopy Anchor Link

• "This file isn't saved as UTF-8": some apps save CSV files in an older text encoding. Open the file in a spreadsheet app and save it again as CSV UTF-8 (or "Unicode text" / UTF-16), then import that copy.
• Too large or too many contacts: split the file and import each part.
• Some entries were skipped: an entry needs at least a name, an email address or a phone number, and email addresses must be valid. Check those rows in the old app, fix them and import the file again: what's already imported is merged, not doubled.