How do I export my Gmail contacts?

I've become addicted to Gmail thanks to your writeups and based on my intense dissatisfaction with Hotmail. Now, however, I find that I'd like to export my address book from Gmail so I can import it into a different email program as a backup. Is that doable?

Dave's Answer:

Actually, you're in luck. Apparently this capability was just recently added to the Gmail service, and it's relatively straightforward:

Log in to your Gmail account, then click on Contacts on the left side. You'll see:

Notice in the top right there's now an Export link. Click on that and you'll see:

This is about as straightforward as it gets! Choose between "Gmail CSV" (a neat idea if you have more than one Gmail account or want to share your address book with a colleague or friend, but generally probably not that useful) and "Outlook CSV" for the ubiquitous Microsoft Outlook email system. Before you panic because you're running Apple Mail or Thunderbird or some other email client, check your documentation: almost all modern mail programs can import Outlook format address books.

Once you choose the format that best fits your needs, click on Export Contacts and in the blink of an eye, you'll have a filename like "gmail-to-outlook.csv" on your computer, ready to be imported into another email program.

Oh! And one helpful tip: Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheets live and breath comma-separated-values (CSV) files, so if you wanted to prune your address book before importing or distributing it, opening up the file in a spreadsheet could be your simplest solution.

Hope this gets you going, and for those of you still looking for Gmail invitations so you can get accounts of your own, please do read Can I have a free Gmail account?

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Reader Comments To Date: 19

Zeta said, on August 31, 2006 6:43 PM:

Incredible, Dude.
Now a have a beautyful file on mi desktop (either unicode or Coma sepparated values) But it doens´t seem to possible to put them into Mozilla´s cute Thunderbird... what can I do, Lord?

Thanks!
Thanks!
Thanks!
Zeta!

mike said, on December 18, 2006 3:31 PM:

I've had big troubles importing my google contacts into Thunderbird because the fields don't line up. Any advice?

Ehsan said, on December 31, 2007 12:33 AM:

Dave,
Thanks a lot for the info, it really helped me in sending New Year wishes to all my Clients,
and Wish You a happy and prosperous New Year 2008
Ehsan
Bangalore

Thas said, on January 8, 2008 6:10 PM:

Thanks Dave Tayler. It worked !!!

Mariana said, on March 20, 2008 1:12 PM:

Awesome!!! I never thought it would be so easy... to tell you the truth I'm a big nooby regarding these kinds of things... In my workplace I use Ubuntu and have all the contacts on Evolution, I'm trying to get them somewhere else to keep them safe since my computer has been acting up a lot lately and dont want to lose the information... thanks!!

http://labs.brotherli.ch/vcfconvert/index.php

Is the page that I used to convert Vcard to CSV in case it's usefull for you.

Thank you thank you!!!

Mystress said, on April 9, 2008 5:42 PM:

How do I export my emails from my gmail to my new live.com account?

Patty said, on April 27, 2008 4:20 PM:

Sigh.....Can someone tell me how to export from gmail to live? Even Microsoft won't answer. =(

ron stone said, on May 3, 2008 9:25 AM:

Dave I am trying to export contacts to csv file...it goes into the process...but never completes it...any suggestions? I have tried both outlook and gmail csv...

Thanks.

Ron

jerry said, on June 19, 2008 7:37 PM:

GOOD DAY
HOW DO I TRANSFER MY GMAIL CONTACTS TO INCREDIMAIL CONTACTS
THANKS
JERRY

Diana Ricart said, on March 4, 2010 8:34 PM:

Hi! Need some help. I have a account with gmail. I received a lot of emails that includes email addreses (in the text/format/body) of the emails. I need to export all to a CVS File in order to export to use it in IContacts.. Theres a program that recognize ALL EMAILS ADDRESS in gmail..??? Emails that are in the body of the messages??
Thanks Guru
Diana

Rose said, on September 22, 2010 11:30 AM:

This appears to be an old tutorial, since the first comment is back from 2006.

Is there still a way to export a group contact list to another gmail account?

Dave Taylor said, on September 22, 2010 11:33 AM:

Thanks for the reminder that I need to update this, Rose. It's straightforward in the modern (2010) Gmail interface. Go to Contacts, then under "more actions" is "Export...". Choose that and you'll see how to proceed. Also take note that there's an "Import..." option on this same menu in Gmail. :-)

Spongebob said, on November 26, 2010 10:50 AM:

How do I please export all my Gmail emails to my computer? With out using any Thunderbird or Outlook , noor forwarding it to another email account.
Can I have my email stored in one simple folder on my PC ?

Thank you

Chris Smith said, on February 17, 2011 6:34 PM:

Hi, thanks for this informative post. You could also refer to Scrubly, it provides troubleshooting infos/tips on sync services (How to Sync Outlook 2011 for Mac with Mac Address Book). They have also a tool, its service scans and removes duplicate contacts from your Outlook, Gmail and Google Apps accounts.

http://www.scrubly.com/blog/index.php/2011/01/how-to-sync-outlook-2011-f...

http://www.scrubly.com

Doug Wilson said, on August 29, 2011 12:57 PM:

Well, the procedure posted 9/22/2010 no longer works because the "more actions" options of My Contacts is gone. It is possible to highlight the whole area of the contact information, do a control-c, then paste the clipboard into an open spreadsheet. (Only tested in LibreOffice Calc.)

Sheila Villena said, on January 2, 2012 1:11 AM:

Dear Dave,

Happy New Year. For months I've been wanting to export my contacts into exel file. Thanks for sharing, I am able to do now.

Blessings to you.

With Metta,
Sheila

Cynthia said, on January 20, 2012 12:51 PM:

I can get the contact into a CSV file,, but the format is so whacked that it's useless - everything jammed into one cell or split into 10 cells, and not in any consistent way.

Diaz said, on February 17, 2012 6:00 AM:

loves this post

Anonymous said, on February 20, 2012 7:44 PM:

sir i want to unwanted email not recive plese help me

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!

How do I export my Gmail contacts?

Reader Comments To Date: 19

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

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