Outlook 2003 Contacts Import Instructions
These instructions are based on Outlook 2003 but should be similar for other versions as well.
1. Export your CSU Webmail address book.
- Logon to Webmail and go to your address book by starting a new message and clicking "Addresses".
- Click the "Export Address Book" button at the bottom of the screen.
- Select the "Comma Separated Values (csv)" option from the menu and click "Export".
2. Save the addresses as a plain text file on your computer.
There are a couple of ways to do this. The easiest is to just save the text to a file using the browser as follows:
- Click "File","Save As" then select "Text" or "Plain Text" as the file type.
- Save the file on your local system, making note of the name and location you choose. Some browsers do
not like it if you change the default file extension from ".txt" so it is best to use that rather than ".csv".
If that does not work well, you can just select all the text in the browser window and copy it into a text editor then save it as follows:
- Select all the text in the window (on a Windows machine, press CTL-A or select "Edit","Select All").
- Copy the text to the clipboard (in Windows, CTL-C or "Edit","Copy").
- Open a text editor (like Notepad) and paste the text into the editor (CTL-V or "Edit","Paste").
- Select a name and save the file somewhere on your system where you can access it later (e.g. "File","Save").
The file should be in this format:
Name,E-mail Address
"John Smith",jsmith@junk.com
"Dana Doe",dana_doe@colostate.edu
"CSU Helpdesk",help@colostate.edu
You might want to open the file ahead of time and make sure it looks correct. There should be no blank lines in the file.
3. Import the addresses into Outlook.
It is a good idea to import the addresses into a temporary contacts folder in case there are problems. Once
the addresses are imported, you can move them to the regular "Contacts" folder and remove the temporary one.
- Start Outlook and make sure it is configured with your profile (e.g. you can see your mail and calendar).
- Click "File", "New", "Folder" then select the root of your mailbox folders. This is the top of the folder structure and
should be named something like "Mailbox - Doe,Jane" with your name displayed.
- Enter a name for the temporary folder (e.g. "Imported Addresses") and set the folder type to "Contact Items" then click "Ok".
- Import the address file that you created earlier by clicking "File", "Import and Export".
- Select "Import from another program or file" and click "Next".
- Select "Comma Separated Values (DOS)" and click "Next".
- Type or browse to the file you created earlier and click "Next". Outlook is expecting a file ending in ".csv" so it probably won't
show up at first. Just browse to the folder where you put the file then type *.* in the "File name:" box and press enter. This
should cause all the files in that folder to appear and you can double click the file you created.
- Select the folder you created to hold the addresses earlier (e.g. "Imported Addresses") and click "Next".
- The box next to the line that starts out "Import ..." should be checked in the next window that appears. If not,
the file probably is not in the correct format. There may be blank lines or HTML code in the export file.
- Click the "Finish" button and wait for the job to complete.
If you do not see the new contacts folder you created in the list on the left side of the screen, look for a folder icon called
"Folder List" in the lower left and click it to display all the folders in your mailbox. After reviewing the addresses to make
sure everything looks good, you can use the "File" menu to select all of the contacts and copy them to the clipboard. Next,
click the "Contacts" folder in your mailbox and use the "File", "Paste" command to put them there.
Finally, once everything looks good, you can delete the temporary contacts folder you created to clean up.
Troubles?