How to Export Your Gmail Contacts

Gmail makes it easy to maintain an address book. Everybody with whom you communicate is automatically added to your Contacts. Of course, additional data can be entered as well.

But what if you want to move or copy your precious collection of correspondents — to another Gmail account, for example, or to a desktop email program such as Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Eudora? Fortunately, exporting contacts from Gmail is just as easy as accumulating them.

Export Your Gmail Contacts

To export your full Gmail address book:

• Select Contacts from the left Gmail navigation bar.
• Now click Export at the top (or at the bottom or in the contacts' toolbar using Gmail's older version).
• For a maximum of compatibility, select Outlook CSV format (or Outlook CSV).
  • Both Outlook CSV and Google CSV export all data. The Gmail format uses Unicode to preserve international characters under all circumstances, but some email programs — including Outlook — do not support that. Outlook CSV converts names to your default character encoding.
• Click Export or Export Contacts.
• Download the "gmail-to-outlook.csv" or "gmail.csv" file to your Desktop.