Import Email Messages from Windows Live Hotmail
With emails, this is easy. You can access your Windows Live Hotmail account in Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail or Outlook transparently or use a tool that lets you retrieve mail from Hotmail in any email client.
But what about your contacts? Using Outlook Express, you can export them from Hotmail for use in your favorite email program, too. If you do not have a Hotmail Plus subscription, which is required for this export process, you can export your Windows Live Hotmail contacts to a CSV file, from which in turn most email programs and services should be able to import your address book.
Export Contacts and Email Addresses from Windows Live Hotmail
To save your Windows Live Hotmail address book to a CSV file:
- Select Options | More options... (or just Options in the Windows Live Hotmail toolbar.
- Follow the Export contacts link under Customize your contacts.
- Click Export contacts.
You can now import contacts from the "WLMContacts.csv" file into the target application or service.
Import Contacts and Email Addresses from Hotmail into Outlook Express
To import contacts and email addresses from Hotmail into your Outlook Express address book:
- Set up access to your Hotmail account in Outlook Express.
- If you already have contacts in your Outlook Express address book for the current identity and want to make sure you are only importing Hotmail contacts, create a new Outlook Express identity for the Hotmail account.
- Select Tools | Address Book... from the menu in Outlook Express.
- Choose Tools | Synchronize Now from the address book's menu.
- If this choice is not available, make sure you do not share contacts between Outlook Express and Outlook. Close and restart Outlook Express if you have made any changes to the contact sharing settings.
- To import the contacts to an email program other than Outlook Express, export the current identity's address book and use your email client's import feature to add the contacts from the .csv file.
