How to Export Contacts and Email Addresses From Hotmail

Microsoft migrated all Hotmail email users to Outlook.com

By
Heinz Tschabitscher
Heinz Tschabitscher
Heinz Tschabitscher
Writer
  • University of Vienna
A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
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Updated on November 18, 2021

What to Know

  • Go to Contacts > Print View and highlight the table's contents. Copy it to the clipboard.
  • Open a new spreadsheet in Excel or OpenOffice.org and paste the contacts table into it. Make sure all the info is in the right place.
  • Save the file in the CSV (Comma delimited)(*.csv) or Text CSV (.csv) format.

If you own a subscription to MSN Hotmail Plus, you can synchronize your contacts between Hotmail and Outlook Express and then further export them from the latter to your desired application or format.

Microsoft no longer offers Hotmail Plus. This information remains for archive purposes.

Export Contacts and Email Addresses From Hotmail 

Windows Live Hotmail can save your contacts to a CSV file that you can import into most any email address book.

To export your contacts and their email addresses from a free MSN Hotmail account:

  1. Select Contacts from the top Hotmail navigation bar.

  2. Click Print View.

  3. Highlight the contents of the table (including the headings Name, E-Mail, and Phone as well as all your contacts) with the mouse.

  4. Press Ctrl+C (Windows), Command+C (Mac), or Alt+C (Linux) to copy the table.

  5. Create a new spreadsheet document in Excel or OpenOffice.org.

  6. Select Edit > Paste from the menu.

  7. Look for rows that have the E-Mail column empty. You can sort the data by column to find and manipulate them en bloc.

  8. If you have any email addresses in the first, the Name column, cut and paste them to the second, the E-Mail column.

  9. In the E-Mail column, remove all whitespace characters. In Excel, right-click an email field and select Column > Trim from the menu.

  10. In OpenOffice.org, search for "[:space:]+$" (excluding the quotation marks), making sure Regular expressions is checked under More Options and replace it with nothing.

  11. Select File > Save As from the menu.

  12. Make sure you use CSV (Comma delimited)(*.csv) or Text CSV (.csv) or a similar format involving "CSV" for saving the file.

Now you can import your contacts and their email addresses from the saved .csv file to your desired email program or service.

Are Your Contacts Stuck in Hotmail?

If you lack a Hotmail Plus subscription and use a free Hotmail account, you may still wish to export your contacts for use in another program or service (maybe another free email service). Is it necessary to get and then get rid of Hotmail Plus?

It is not. If you are ready to engage in some work, you can get your contacts and email addresses out of Hotmail and into a universal format reasonably fast and with plenty of automation (contrast that with keying in the details again while switching between windows constantly).

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