Importing csv file information into an Outlook Address Book

by Donny, on July 21st, 2008

In this tutorial we’re going to go over how to import csv information into your Outlook address book. A CSV file, or Comma Separated Value file, is often used when importing and exporting data from various applications. It is much more efficient to import pre-entered data, than to manually enter in data to address fields.

Importing data into Outlook is fairly simple, but just like one of my favorite sayings explains - “everything is easy once you know it”. If you’ve never imported data before it can be tricky, so let techoids.com be your guide. Since most people as of this writing are using the Outlook 2003 styling, this tutorial will be based on Outlook 2003. Other applications use a very similar procedure so this should be useful for those of you that may want to extrapolate.

1) From within Outlook, go to file and click on import and export (see above left). This will start you into an importing wizard. Once in, select “import from another program or file.” Click Next.

2) Outlook will want to know which kind of file we’ll be importing, in this case we’re importing a windows .csv file. Click Next.

3) Browse to find the .csv file you’d like to import. If you’re updating the file from a previous time you can select “replace duplicates with the items created.” If you’re looking to save some time in your import and you are updating but don’t feel that any of your current contacts need changing, select “Do not import duplicate items.” If the new contact information is better than the contact information you have, select “Replace duplicates with items imported.” Click Next.

4) Once you have selected the file, you’ll see a screen below asking where you’d like to import the files to. You want to select the “Contacts” directory by highlighting it and pressing next.