How do I import Yahoo Mail addresses into Address Book on the Mac?

I want to import my yahoo address book to the Mac Address application on my laptop. I am running OSX 10.3.9. In Mac Address book "help" it says: "If you have problems importing a contact into Address Book, make sure it is a vCard or is in LDAP Interchange Format (LDIF). These are the only two formats Address Book recognizes."

I realize that to export my Yahoo address book it must be in the format of ".cvs"

Obviously these formats do not match so I ask you if you know of a work around solution to this?

Dave's Answer:

I've been running the beta of Yahoo Mail and am surprised you're telling me that's a problem: In the new beta it's a breeze.

Let me show you how it's done. If you can't get to the beta, then try logging out of Yahoo Mail, making sure you have the very latest version of Firefox on your Mac, and log in to Yahoo Mail again. You should have the option of running the beta as an alternative to their rather tired production email interface.

Log in to the beta interface, then click on the small "options" on the top right, which will offer you the choices of "Mail Options" or "Mail for Mobile". Pick the former and you'll promptly get a warning:

Now you'll have a set of different options you can modify:

Pick "Address Book" to get to the correct spot in the application. Now you can see the choices, what you seek is obvious:

Choose Import/Export and scroll down a bit. Now you can see that the choices have changed and include CSV (that's "comma separated values") along with a bunch more:

Checking with the Mac OS X application "Address Book", it appears from this list off the "File" menu that it supports the following import formats:

There's at least one match between the two, and you should be able to proceed without any further hassle!

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Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 6712, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: address book, address book import, yahoo mail, yahoo mail export
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Reader Comments To Date: 11

YusefWateef said, on September 13, 2006 6:18 PM:

How do I import Hotmail Mail addresses into Address Book on the Mac?

You answered the question for yahoo! and I am quite grateful! how do I do it for hotmail?

Namita Kapoor said, on September 14, 2007 1:36 PM:

hello! do you know how to sync mac address book with yahoo mail? I have all my contacts on mac address book but use Yahoo mail...is there an easy way to transfer them?

jordan said, on October 3, 2007 5:47 PM:

I'm running mac 10.4.9
I deleleted all my contacts/ emails in mac address book.
I didnt' back them up unfortunately. I did noticed in the program Mail, that I have plenty of email addresses. (in sent mail, received mail, ect...) rather than putting them back into my address book one at a time which could take forever, is there a third party software or any other way to parse out these email addresses and then import them into address book all at once?
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Annie said, on December 1, 2007 6:14 PM:

Hi,
I read your answer about transferring address from Yahoo mail to the Mac. Is it possible to do this if Firefox is NOT installed on my Mac?

surfingmonk said, on January 4, 2008 9:41 PM:

this is out of date and does not correlate to Yahoo Mail's menu's

Parandaman said, on April 3, 2008 10:48 PM:

Hi,

How to Fetch Address Book from my site to Yahoo,Gmail Site Using Both MailId And PassWd.

Give Me Any Idea.send to Sample Code How to Do it.

Thanks.

Vangie Sabanal said, on October 11, 2008 1:39 AM:

i want to ask,why my file change to Yahoo Adrss Book,i cant chat to my online friends.before is Yahoo Mail,i can hcat easily.

Gerald Taylor said, on March 23, 2009 11:54 AM:

Hi
I want to copy my adress book from works computor into my personal lap top. I have outlook express at work.

Andrea said, on June 1, 2011 8:35 AM:

Thank you , Thank you! Your advice worked perfectly for me!!!

Matt P said, on September 20, 2011 6:09 AM:

Only problem it this make me do one at a time

Margret C said, on November 21, 2011 3:36 PM:

Can I export my address book from Yahoo Mail Classic? Every time I've tried one of Yahoo's newer versions of their mail software they've all been worse than regular Classic so I've stuck with it. Now I'd like to start using my Mac Mail app but need to import my address book from Yahoo. BTW, at this time, the option at the top of the Yahoo welcome screen is "Get The Newest Yahoo! Mail."Not sure what's going on w/ Beta. I'm afraid if I 'go there' I'll never get my Mail Classic back. I also do not use Firefox. Advice?

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 import Yahoo Mail addresses into Address Book on the Mac?

Reader Comments To Date: 11

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

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