When you backup or export your contacts directly from outlook? Learn how to export contacts from Outlook to CSV or PST file: all or by category, your personal contacts or Global Address List, from Outlook Online or desktop.

Whether you are migrating to another email service or making a regular backup of your Outlook data, it is crucial to transfer all contact details without any fail. This tutorial will teach you a few easy ways to export Outlook contacts into a .csv or .pst file, so that you could later import them anywhere you need including Excel, Google Docs, Gmail and Yahoo.

When you backup or export your contacts directly from outlook?

Your Outlook can have quite a far-reaching contact base. There might arrive a time when you need to export and back up Outlook contacts(maybe collectively with some other mailbox items such as emails, notes, calendars, etc). Exporting Outlook contacts can be confusing, as there are many versions in Microsoft Outlook with different settings that vary with versions, so they require different steps to export or backup contacts.

In this article, we have tried to explain how you can export and back up Outlook contacts to various file formats, such as CSV, Excel, PST, or OST files for Outlook versions like Outlook 2013, 2016, 2019, and Microsoft 365. Also, we have discussed how you can take a backup of your Outlook contacts to Gmail.

Why is it important to export Outlook contacts?

Exporting Outlook contacts can help you:

• Import your Outlook contacts to another email service
• Manage your Outlook contacts within Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet program
• Move your contacts to another computer or device
• Back up your contacts to prevent the loss of this data
• Export your contacts to a virtual business card, or a vCard

Most of these options want you to export into different file types. For example, another email service or device typically wants your contacts as a Comma Separated Values, or CSV, file. A vCard often uses a VCF file so you can directly import your Outlook contacts into Excel, and if you’re performing a data backup, it usually means you can use a Personal Storage Table, or PST, file.

Reasons to Export or Backup Contacts from Outlook

There can be many reasons why you might want to export contacts from Outlook. Some of the scenarios are listed below:

• Import contacts to another email client, like Gmail.
• To migrate them (together with other items) to another system or version.
• To manage them in Excel Sheet (for example, bulk-editing contacts or importing them back to Outlook)
• And even to backup contacts.

You might wonder what difference it makes as far as exporting is concerned. Depending on the reason why you want to export contacts, you might need a different set of target file formats that you can choose while exporting.

1. For example, if you want to migrate your personal contacts to another email client, it is almost effortless to export contacts to a CSV file or Excel file format– this manageable file format is supported by almost any client.
2. Whereas, in the case of manual migration of multiple users, like a mailbox to an exchange server, Outlook contacts become a small piece of the whole picture. In these scenarios, you can manually export Outlook contacts and other mailbox items using the PST file format.

However, you may be able to export all Outlook items employing certain file formats mentioned, but if you want to backup them on a regular basis, you should consider an easy automated process such as using a tool/software built for automated backup and migration of entire Outlook profile.

How to back up contacts in Outlook with Remo OBM?

To avoid such situations, you must consider a tool to safely backup Outlook contacts. Remo Outlook Backup and Migrate tool is an all-in-one tool to automatically backup, restore, and migrate Outlook data, including your Outlook contacts, regularly. If you are wondering how do I backup Outlook contacts, this is the automated and easy solution for you.

It also comes with 25GB cloud storage, where you can store Outlook data without losing it forever. You can easily migrate Outlook from one computer to another or even from the old Outlook version to the new version or vice-versa. Download Remo Outlook Backup and Migrate tool and backup contacts hassle-free.

After taking a backup of Outlook Contacts, if you’re looking to transfer Outlook contacts to Gmail or Google contacts to keep a sync of contacts, follow the next section.

How to Export Outlook Contacts and Import them to Gmail?

For Microsoft 365, Outlook 2021, 2019, 2016, 2013,2010, and 2007:

Even though MS Outlook is the first preference of the users when it comes to communication but recently Gmail is turning into a legitimate option that is ousting Outlook as the most used email client, more and more users are moving towards Gmail.

In this section, you can find an easy method to transfer Outlook Contacts into Gmail. Now that you know how to export Outlook contacts to a .csv file or PST file as stated in the above section, you can import Outlook contacts to Gmail through the exported CSV file.

There are two methods by which you can import Outlook contacts to Gmail, you can directly use Google Contacts App or you can log into Gmail through your browser. Here we will talk about how you can import contacts to Gmail using Google Contacts App.

Important Note: Google updated the Google Contacts app recently. You can directly import Outlook contacts to Google using Google Contacts. Google Gmail and Outlook can share the same contacts, without having to add them to both locations.

Reliability of PST migration and backup

If the sole purpose of exporting Outlook contacts and other mailbox items is to migrate or backup your data, methods mentioned in the article might not be as reliable as you need. Any backup is better than no backup, but is it enough?

CSV files are as far from scalability as possible and PST files tend to be highly unreliable. The following guide shows all the pros and cons of making a PST backup to let you easily decide if this solution is for you or you need a better one:

Export Exchange data to PST for backup or migration purposes

How to export Global Address List (GAL) from Outlook

While you can easily transfer your own contact folders from Outlook, there seems to be no direct way to export Exchange-based contact lists of your organization or any kind of Offline Address Book. However, you can add the items of the Global Address List to your personal Contacts folder, and then export all the contacts. To have it done, perform these steps:

• Open your Outlook Address Book. For this, either click Address Book on the Home tab, in the Find group, or press the Ctrl+ Shift + B keyboard shortcut.
• In the Address Book dialog box, select the Global Address List or another Exchange-based address list.
• Select the contacts you wish to export:
• To select all contacts, click the first item, press and hold the Shift key, and then click the last item.
• To select specific contacts, click the first item, press and hold the Ctrl key, and then click other items one by one.
• Right click your selection and pick Add to Contacts from the context menu.

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