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Export your address book from Google's Gmail?

Dave, on my gmail account on my page there are no words which say export contacts and i have seen a picture on google of where abouts it is supposed to be on the page but it simply isnt there. i no u can also export doing excel and stuff but that is so much easier and its quite fustrating. thanks


Dave's Answer:

You're asking about a very new feature of Gmail that's easy to use, once you figure out where it's hidden...

The first step is to log in to your Gmail account and notice that down the left side of the screen is a list of your folders (Inbox, Starred, Sent Mail, etc) and, just below it, Contacts. Click on that.

Now you're looking at a page that shows you a list of frequently mailed contacts and has a second tab for All Contacts. On the top of that page, you'll see this:

Google Gmail Contacts Page

Notice the rightmost option: export. Click on that and you'll see a helpful pop-up window:

Export Contacts from Google Gmail

The rest of this process I'll leave as, um, an exercise for the reader. :-)

Hope that gets you traveling in the right direction!


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Reader Comments To Date: 18

nick said, on December 20, 2005 5:35 PM:

Hi, Do you have any advice as to how I can get my gmail contact list into the osX address book app?

Thanks

Jonathan said, on March 24, 2007 2:11 PM:

I currently synchronize Microsoft Outlook Contacts to my Treo seamlessly, BUT I understand that the basic $150 version of Office 2007 that I will be getting on my new Dell will NO longer include Outlook.

I am trying to simplify what's stored on my computer using more 'web based' applications, so I am not interested in buying and maintaing one more program such as Lotus Notes.

MY QUESTION:
Do you know if there is a list of all the programs where I can maintain my contacts / address book, THAT ALSO synchronizes seamlessly (because if I have to do any more than touch the synch button on my Treo cable I'll never bother synching)?

I've been researching on line for the past hour, but to no avail. Please send a response to my e-mail, as I'm not sure I would know wher to look for the answer on your web site.

Thank you very much,

Jonathan said, on March 24, 2007 2:13 PM:

I currently synchronize Microsoft Outlook Contacts to my Treo seamlessly, BUT I understand that the basic $150 version of Office 2007 that I will be getting on my new Dell will NO longer include Outlook.

I am trying to simplify what's stored on my computer using more 'web based' applications, so I am not interested in buying and maintaing one more program such as Lotus Notes.

MY QUESTION:
Do you know if there is a list of all the programs where I can maintain my contacts / address book, THAT ALSO synchronizes seamlessly (because if I have to do any more than touch the synch button on my Treo cable I'll never bother synching)? I was hoping Google would have something, or even my AOL.

I've been researching on line for the past hour, but to no avail. Please send a response to my e-mail, as I'm not sure I would know wher to look for the answer on your web site.

Thank you very much,

Partha said, on March 9, 2008 6:05 AM:

I looked up your page, through Google, to find out how to export my gmail addressbook. I got the answer. And tried it. And it actually worked.

Many many thanks.

GOD bless you.

partha

PS I live in india.

richard hirsch said, on May 9, 2008 1:26 PM:

Hi Dave,
Maybe you have the answer to my question: Is there any way to have every calendar entry I make on Ical (Apple) on a day to day basis, automatically update my Gmail calendar? If so, please tell me how to do it?
Thank you,
Richard

Connie said, on May 21, 2008 1:08 PM:

Wow, I can't believe I starred at my gmail account for 10 min trying to figure out how to export my address book and found your page, followed directions and done in 2 seconds ! Thanks for the great tip!

Guy said, on December 16, 2008 6:17 AM:

Dave,
I saved my Outlook address book to a CSV format and imported to Gmail contacts. The problem is that Gmail contacts does not recognize my CSV fields and reads all data as notes. What gives?

Alice said, on January 7, 2009 1:49 PM:

Hi -- I tried the Google contact export function, though specifying the VCF format for Address Book so I could update contacts on my Mac. However, when I opened the updated Google VCF file on my Mac, none of the contacts contained street addresses.

I like having contacts on Google but the only problem is that you can't print them in mailing label format (late holidays cards). If you know of a way to do that, I'll sue it and just ditch Address Book on the Mac. Any advice?

Alice

XYZ said, on January 27, 2009 11:29 AM:

Unfortunately this doesn't really work if you have turned off automatic addition of contacts (which is essential if you are a heavy Gmail user).

For example, I have 10k+ emails from hundreds of people but only 30 in my 'Suggested contacts'.

Is there any way to export all email addresses from the Mail side?

smart guy said, on February 7, 2009 6:40 AM:

the people from gmail are stupid so that they didn't make a such as great feature to export all email addresses from the Mail side

Abraham Ganem said, on August 20, 2009 11:06 AM:

Hi, I have a academic google account, i need to export the user account list, but have not been able to. I need help pls. Thx

JW said, on September 29, 2009 8:37 PM:

So here is the deal,Google should have up front, the way to send-export email addresses to another google account, or to another windows version email address.But especually if it,is from one Google account,to another Google account.We have tried the list of items but when we click the EXPORT we see no pop up window for exporting email accounte it always sends them in part to the CSV and it onoly has a scrambled few mixed names and addresses,That process is but useless.It was the most basic process to send the addresses over to the stupid windows live message page now we cant remove then from there?.

Oscar said, on May 4, 2010 6:49 AM:

Dave,

I'm having an issue with the address field in Gmail contacts, in that it exports as one field. I am sync'ing my google contacts with the people app on my Droid Incredible and the problem is that the entire address is in the street field, which makes it difficult to edit. Any suggestions?

Dave Taylor said, on May 4, 2010 7:05 AM:

Oscar, what I suggest is that you try opening up the data file that Gmail outputs then replace commas with tabs or vice-versa. Then try importing that. Or see if there's a way on the Droid to specify the delimiter that marks which field is which? Sounds frustrating, but I don't have a Droid device to experiment with...

Jochen Hayek said, on May 19, 2010 11:04 AM:

what's the meaning of the "*" that shows up in such CSV files?

m said, on September 13, 2010 3:55 AM:

Now the export option is available in the 'More Action' button

Iris Rose Julian said, on October 30, 2011 12:49 PM:

I am not computer savvy.

I have answered correctly both my user name and my password numerous times. I keep getting "the user name or password is incorrect".

I finally signed up for an account with google and now I've lost all my contacts. How can I retrieve them? Or can I still SOMEWAY get into my old account above. The new account is irisrosejulian@gmail.com

Tino said, on December 22, 2011 7:34 AM:

If you just want your email addresses out in a list, I used 'gme', its really hard to find but belive its on a site called starbanana com. They charge (im nothing to do with em). It worked on my google app a/c so though it might help ya out.

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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