A client of mine still has a computer running Microsoft Outlook Express and they wanted me to import the address book contacts into their Yahoo Mail account. At first I was a little worried that Yahoo Mail may no longer support the format of Outlook Express address book contacts but then I remembered that you can export contacts into a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file which means I could manipulate the data if it was not supported. Yahoo Mail says that it supports import from Outlook but it doesn’t specify Outlook Express. I assume the format between Outlook and Outlook Express must be similar because Yahoo Mail did import the exported contacts from Outlook Express. Below I describe how to export Outlook Express contacts and then import those contacts into Yahoo Mail. Follow the instructions below that are broken into two parts which include exporting the contacts using Outlook Express and then importing the contacts using the Yahoo Mail web interface.
Export Outlook Express Contacts To A CSV File:
- Open Outlook Express Address Book: First launch Outlook Express and click on the Address Book button in the top navigation bar. This will display the Outlook Express Address Book as displayed in the below image.
- Address Book Export Tool: Now you want to launch the Outlook Express Address Book export tool which can be done by clicking File in the Address Book navigation bar, select Export Tool from the pop down menu, and select “Other Address Book..” from the fly out menu as displayed below.
This will open the Address Book Export Tool configuration window as displayed in the next step.
- Export Contacts To CSV: The first option you need to select in the Export Tool configuration window is “Text File (Comma Separated Values)” as displayed in the below image.
- Save Exported Contacts File: Now click the Export button which will open a new configuration window where you need to specify the file name for the exported Outlook Express contacts as displayed in the below image. You can also specify a location for the file to be saved by clicking the Browse button.
- Select Contact Fields To Export: Click the Next button after you have selected the location to save the file and a configuration window will open where you can select what fields you want to export as displayed in the image below. Yahoo suggests that you export every possible field so go ahead and check every box.
- Complete Contact Export Process: Click the Finish button after you have checked every field for export which will begin the contact export process. Once it is completed a success message will display as shown in the below image.
Now that you have the contacts exported into a CSV file you will need to follow the directions below so you can import those contacts into Outlook Express.
Import Outlook Express Exported Contacts Into Yahoo Mail Contact List:
- Logon To Yahoo Mail: First thing will be to open Yahoo in a browser and then logon to your Yahoo Mail from there.
- Open Yahoo Mail Options: In the upper right corner of the screen will be a link titled Options so click that and then select Mail Options from the drop down as displayed below.
Clicking Mail Options will display the Yahoo Mail configuration screen as displayed below.
- Yahoo Mail Contacts Configuration: Now select Contacts from the left navigation menu to display the Yahoo Mail contacts configuration window as displayed in the below image.
- Yahoo Mail Import Options: From the Yahoo Mail contacts configuration screen click on Import/Export in the right column of the page. This will open the Import/Export contacts screen as displayed below.
- Import Outlook Express Contacts: From the Import contacts configuration screen you need to verify a couple settings and select the location of the CSV file with the contacts from Outlook Express. Make sure that the top option “Choose a program to import contacts from” is set to Microsoft Outlook (CSV). Then under “Specify the file to import” browse to the CSV file. Then press the Import Now button to begin the import process. Once Yahoo is done importing the Outlook Express contacts you will be redirected and a success message will display showing the amount of contacts that were imported as displayed in the below image.
- Verify Yahoo Mail Contacts: Click the Contacts tab to verify all of the Outlook Express contacts were imported correctly into Yahoo.
You can store up to 5,000 contacts in Yahoo so if you have any trouble importing contacts this is the first thing I would check to make sure that you are not trying to import a number of contacts that would put you over this limit. One of the other issues I have noticed when importing contacts into Yahoo Mail is the fact that sometimes the import process has an issue with importing more than a thousand contacts at a time so I would suggest if you have more than 1,000 contacts you are going to import to break the CSV files down into 1,000 contact files instead of one file with 2,000 contacts.
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This looks very thorough. However, I have Outlook Professional 2007. I’d like to be able to access my contacts in Yahoo when I’m away from home. I don’t want to delete them from Outlook. Do you have instructions for that?
Hello Valerie,
You would simply export your contacts from Outlook and then import using the directions above. In Outlook 2007 you can export the contacts in the proper format by opening Outlook, click on File in the top navigation menu, select Import and Export from the drop down menu, select Export to a File and click the Next button, select Comma Separated Values (DOS) and click the Next button, select Contacts from the list of Outlook folders and click the Next button, name the file (something.csv) and click the Next button, verify the proper Contacts are being exported and click the Finish button. After exporting import the CSV file as noted in the article above. It is pretty much the same process as Outlook Express just a little different because of Outlook 2007.
Hope that helps.
Thanks.
alex
Thank you for the clear and concise instructions on how to Export my contacts from Outlook to yahoo.
You instructions were very helpful and only required a few moments of my time.
Keep up the good work
Hello Terrell,
No problem at all. Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback.
Thanks.
alex
Thanks for outlining the steps. The entire process works fine right up to the window that says Step 2 – Select Contacts to Import. The CSV file definitley has records in it, but the import window in Yahoo is empty. FYI, I’m using Outlook 2007 for the export. Also, the yahoo import windows look different than the screen shots you posted. They are a bit more graphical with 3 bars along the top to show progress.
Hello Lara,
No problem. It is definitely possible that Yahoo has modified their design a bit since this article is from Jan. Also did you see the note at the end of the article? Yahoo has issues at times importing thousands of contacts a time. My suggestion would be to try and import one contact only to see if that is successful and then move forward from there.
Thanks.
alex
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Hello sir,
I don’t think that the characters posted properly but I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to leave feedback.
Thanks.
alex
Hi Alex,
I’m using Outlook 2007. I tried with the instructions you replied to Valerie (May 6, 2010) but failed. After i chose the Select Source to import (from a desktop Outlook), Step 2 of Selecting Contacts screen appears, but there is none of my contacts in the box (eventhought i opened the .csv file to check and there are contacts). What’s wrong here? Please help. Thanks. Jenny
Hello Jenny,
Make sure to remove the first line or two of the CSV file that includes the column headers such as “Name, Address, etc.” I would also create a CSV file with one of the contacts to see if your format works at all. If it does then you know it has to do with the amount of contacts or one of the lines in the CSV that is causing the issue.
Thanks.
alex
I wish OUTLOOK EXPRESS would give me the option to block out spam mail.When I block a sender every day they go on my blocked senders list but I still get their spam mail 1 to 4 times daily. Its ridiculous.I tried contacting microsoft with the problem and they wanted to charge me 18.00 or more just to help me.I thought when you blocked a sender their future mail was automatically deleted.Thats what OUTLOOK EXPRESS says but it dont work.Now I must spend 20 minutes a day deleting mail I dont even read.Will I be forced to move my mail to another account where I have spam protection? I like OUTLOOK EXPRESS if they could fix this problem.
Hello Dale,
I thought Outlook Express did have a Junk Mail setting area but I could be incorrect. There are also lots of third party services that don’t charge a lot of money to filter junk email. Something like $5/month will have mail go through them before it hits your inbox. Also Outlook Express is not going to be supported much longer.
Thanks.
alex
This is great except I can’t figure out how to break down my Outlook contacts into bundles of 1,000. I have made the CSV file but it has 3,700 contacts and yahoo won’t import it. Can you help me make smaller bundles of address to import? Thank you so much.
Hello kac,
Sure. I would try opening he 3,700 contacts in MS Excel or another program that will read the output file. Once you have it open highlight the first line of contacts, hold shift, and scroll down to 500 or 1,000 and clck that line. Copy the 500 or 1,000 lines and paste them into a new worksheet. Save that document and attempt to import that with the smaller number of contacts. Then do the same with the other contacts once you find he right amount that will import at a time.
Hope that helps.
Thanks.
alex
I have around 600 contacts in the CSV file from outlook. As I try to import it into Yahoo, it only pulls 160 random contacts. I tried to cut the file size down to only 10 as a test and it only pulled over 1 contact. Can anyone help?
Hello Angela,
In that list of ten contacts you tested importing into Outlook Express with I would look for the differences in those contacts. I am guessing there is an extra field of data or something that is different than the contact that successfully imports. I would go back over the matching of fields from the CSV file and what will be matched to Outlook Express.
Thanks.
alex
I ran a test with each field that I exported as a CSV file from Outlook 2007. Turned out that Outlook combines the entire business address, home address, etc into 1 cell (street, state, zip, country). Once I separated the addresses out into separate columns/cells (street in one column, state in another, etc), it worked fine. Thank you!
Hello Angela,
Glad to hear you were able to get the Yahoo contacts imported into Outlook Express! Thanks for taking the time to explain what ended up resolving your issues. Hopefully someone else that has a similar issue will read this comment and be able to resolve their issue as well.
Thanks.
alex
How do I import my outlook contacts with phone numbers and address to yahoo contacts. I know how to import them with the csv file with name and email address only, I need phone numbers and address,thanks