Still, you have to enter the email address at least once. With all your contacts already in your Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook Express, Outlook, Mac OS X Mail etc. address book, is this really necessary? No, of course you can import addresses into Gmail more or less easily.
To import addresses into Gmail, you first need to get them out of your current address book and in CSV format. What sounds highly sophisticated is really just a plain text file with addresses and names, separated by comma.
Export Your Contacts from an Existing Address Book
- Hotmail: Export your Hotmail address book to Outlook Express and subsequently to a CSV file.
- Outlook Express: Save your address book to a CSV file.
- Yahoo! Mail: Export your address book.
- Outlook: Save your contacts to a CVS file.
- Mac OS X Mail: Use A to G.
- Mozilla and Netscape: Export contacts from the address book.
- Unfortunately, Mozilla and Netscape do not add the column headings needed by Gmail for importing contacts. You have to open the exported CSV file in either a spread sheets program or a plain text editor and add them. In the latter case, add the following line to the top of the file: "First Name,Last Name,Name,,Email Address,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,".
Import Addresses into Gmail
Once the export is done, importing the addresses into your Gmail contact list is really easy:
- Go to Contacts.
- Click Import (at the bottom).
- Select the CSV file holding your exported contacts.
- Click Import.
- Now click OK.
Import Addresses into Gmail (Older Version)
To import contacts from a CSV file into Gmail's older version:
- Follow the Contacts link in the topmost Gmail navigation bar.
- Select Import Contacts.
- Choose the CSV file you just saved from your email client or service.
- Click Import Contacts.
