How do I move my Microsoft Outlook contacts?

When I change to a new computer, I just copy my old "outlook.pst" and "archive.pst" to the new machine, overwriting the outlook.pst created by the new install of Outlook.

These files are usually found at:
documents & settings...
"user name"...
local settings ...
microsoft...
outlook

The Outlook .. File.. menu also provides for export/import.. of your data to a file.. pst..
or import of a pst file to your current outlook.
I used this function back when moving my pst files from Outlook '98 to Outlook 2003.

I had been trying to transport my contacts list from Outlook for several days... and found your site just as I was on the verge of beginning to retype all my entries. (I found all the other sites so unhelpful!)

Thanks so much for saving me hours of mind-numbing busywork. (Just think of all the extra TV I can watch now...)

old computer motherboard died !!!1
got a computer up and running and put my old hard drive in new one as a slave drive .
have loaded all software as old computer had on it trying to get my old contacts from ms outlook
to new outlook how do i find the file and how do i put them in new outlook ?

Thanks for the info, but is there anyway to recover the outlook contact files when you can't run the original program to export them? Our old hard drive is dying - we can see the files, but we can't run the programs. Is there anyway to save our contact files? I found the outlook.pst file, but I don't know what to do with it.

Thanks,
Natalie

Dave, (Outlook 2000) I want to copy my contacts list, however when I click the export button the program crashes with one of the long 0xc0000005 messages. Is there a workaround where I can go to the Outlook file and get the information. The same version I have installed on my other computer works fine. Thanks, Lawson

when i try to move contact file from on comp to another, my file menu in outlook doesn't have import export. what do i do??

I am writing because I am trying to transfer contacts from one computer to another and they do not appear in the contact file of the second computer. I am transfering by scandisc.

Also, how can I combine subfolders in outlook?
This is new to me and driving me crazy.

How do I get Outlook 2000 to use my contact subfolders to look for an emial address when creating a new email?

Hello Dave. My question is the one of the same questions you've had before. I didn't see the answer posted so I cut and paste it below, in hopes that you will answer the question again.
Thank You!!

old computer motherboard died !!!1
got a computer up and running and put my old hard drive in new one as a slave drive .
have loaded all software as old computer had on it trying to get my old contacts from ms outlook
to new outlook how do i find the file and how do i put them in new outlook ?

Is it possible to transfer my "personalities" for Microsoft Outlook? i.e. I receive email for several different email addresses...do I have to reenter all that info on my new computer?

I transfered my inbox to the new computer but none of the email dates moved. The date field list the word "none". How do I transfer the dates?

Hi Dave!

Is there a way to save .pst contact files to disc? I have googled and found nada.

Thanks for any help you can give!

OK, confused. I don't see the answer to this. An old comnputer running outlook, a new computer running outlook. I moved the .pst file, and see all my old mail exactly as in the old comnputer, but in the new computer contact list is empty, whereas the old one has a few hundred contacts.

i conclude that my cntacts must be somewhere else than in the .pst file. What do i do?

Dave....
I have a question....I am trying to copy my task list on my computer and transfer it over to a friends computer here at the house. We are working on the same things and was wondering if this was possible. Thanks!

Dear Dave,
In my old computer, my Microsoft contacts were limited to 1000......I "split" the database in the middle of the alphabet, and was able to add some more contacts, up to about 1300. All of my list e-mail addresses kept dropping out of the system, however. Now I have a brand new computer, and when we transfered all of the contacts to the new computer with Microsoft 2003, we still have the "split" database, no new contacts allowed due to volume already there, and lists disappearing again. Can you help?
Thanks,
D'Lisa

Hi Dave
Restored computer loaded new copy of office 2003 Trying to get outlook file from my backup copy

have loaded all software as old computer had on it trying to get my old contacts from ms outlook
to new outlook how do i find the file and how do i put them in new outlook ?

Dear dave

My old computer motherboard died.

I have got a new computer up and running and have put my old hard drive in new one as a slave drive(D Drive).

I have loaded all the software as the old computer. I am trying to get my old contacts and e mails from ms outlook on the D Drive with no joy.

How do i find the files and how do i put them in new outlook on the C Drive?

Your help would be greatly appreciated

Regards

David Faulkner
Fareham
England

Hello to everyone who asked this question,

As Dave doesn't know the answer, I will show the guru who the real guru is, and answer it for you :p

If you old HD dies/gets replaced, and you have it as a slave/backup drive, you can copy your old outlook express contacts from the old HD to the new one. Read on:

the file you want is: your_user_name.wab

this is located at:

C:\Documents and Settings\your_user_name\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\your_user_name.wab

so, find the file from the old HD, and copy it over the one on the new HD.

simple :)

Ah, a true guru knows where to turn for answers, Tim, so I'm delighted you have offered up your expertise in this matter. :-)

Dell laptop inspiron 8100, when installed with WindowXp professional OS, it hanged after usage.
You have to restart by removing all power input to the equipt. This laptop drivers and utilities cd are for Window2000 OS. Therefore, I did not use it. What do I need to do or set to prevent the above from occurring again.

Dave, I just got a new computer, and want to move my Microsoft Outlook email folders and contents( individual emails) to a new computer. How do I move this file? thanks

WOW THANKS A WHOLE LOT!!!!!! I THOUGHT AS AN ENGINEER AND COMPUTER EXPERT I KNEW EVERYTHING BUT "OUTLOOK" WAS MY "WATER LOO" DAMN! I NEVER THOUGHT MOVING OUTLOOK TO ANOTHER MACHINE WOULD BE SUCH A HASSLE, COULDN'T FIND FILES IN A NORMAL WAY TO STORE ON MY THUMB DRIVE NO HOW NO WAY! SO EMBARRACING WITH ONE OF MY NETWORK CLIENTS LOOKING OVER MY SHOULDER HEHE.

YOU ARE BRILLIANT AND YOUR INFORMATION WAS UNUSUALLY SUCCIENT AND TO THE POINT RIGHT ON IN EVERY WAY THANK YOU...KUDOS...I DEFER TO YOU :)

ANYTIME I CAN BE OF HELP PLEASE LET ME KNOW

TED WARREN

(HUGS AND KISSES LOLOL !!!!)

informative, concise, effective. thank you, dave!
Evan

Dear Dave,

I use Microsoft Outlook and whenever I receive a text message from a cell phone (who's specific contact info has already been saved in my Outlook contact list) to my email, it appears in my Inbox "from" 8885551111@....messaging.com instead of the full contact name (ex. John Smith)as saved in my contact list. This only happens when receiving a text and not when receiving an email... I've tried many different ways of entering the SMS info into the specific contact list but nothing has helped. I would like to see the person's name appear in the "from" column....
Do you have a solution?

Thanks,

Michael

Thank you so much!! I've been trying to get my contact list copied for two hours, and your page here help me to do it in five minutes.

Lori

How do I move Outlook Contact Groups to another computer

Its possible to move outlook contacts from lists or groups not on server.

1.) GO to the Contacts
2.) Double click the list to open it.
3.) From file menu choose Save As.
4.) Save it as a text file at the desired location.
5.) Now open the text file with Excel and bingo you have all the contacts in the file.

Regards,
Naren......

Dear Dave / anyone,
I have a machine that is running outlook 2000
on it. I have another machine that is also running
outlook 2000 on it.
Is there a way of merging their inbox and sent box ?
One machine doesnt have contacts so ill use your
method above. But I am assuming if I copy over a
.pst file it will over write and I will lose one
set of inbox and sent box.
Is this correct ?

I went to a new hotmail format a few days ago--my old add. book went somewhere--my new add. book only has email addresses not names--I want my old book back-
thanks, Joe

I just installed an additional hard drive. The old one is still accessible, but the programs will run on the new one. Here is my question: I copied the .pst files and received my primary contacts list, however, I did not receive the sub directories. How do I fix this?

Thanks for your help!!!
Stasi

I found an easy way to do this.

On your old copy of Outlook. Find the .pst file (Mine was HIDDEN in
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.pst
The file is hidden from local settings. So a seach didn't show it for me.. I just happened to look there.)

1) I extracted the outlook.pst from a backup I had made the day before. (used XP's build in Backup Utility) I put it in a tmp dir on my desktop.

In the new copy of outlook click:
File->import & export->import from another program or file->next->personal folder file(.pst)
->next->browse->desktop->tmp->outlook.pst->open->do not import duplicates->next->finish.

When that was done all my email and addresses were restored from my backup to my new instance of outlook.

Hope this helps other find an EASY way to restore their outlook from a backup.

Hi Dave
An outlook 2003 question that it really bugging me... do you know any way to change the username that displays in contacts at top left hand corner or remove it altogether as I am using several email accounts but the contacts seem to default to just one name. This shows up when you print or print preview. Help really really appreciated
thanks
maxine

THANK YOU!!!! I have been searching for awhile trying to figure out how to transfer my files from a HDD to my new computer. I searched and found the .pst files on the HDD and copied to the same folder in the new computer. Now I have all my old e-mails, contacts and calendar info. I am amazed that it was such a simple solution and yet I had to scour the internet for hours trying to find it.

Hi,

I copied the .pst files from MS Outlook 2000 (old computer) to MS Outlook 2003 (new computer.)
Now the Address Book is blank, but I still have contacts folder with all the details.
How do I get my Address Book back with all the contacts in it?

Thank you for your instructions! I was about to manually enter the addressess. What a lifesaver. Many thanks again.

I had a laptop die and needed the outlook data (as well as a bunch of other stuff) so I put the drive in an external USB case and plugged it into a different desktop machine, installed outlook, and copied the pst files into the "c:\docs and settings\user\localfiles\app data\ etcetera" directory expecting everything to be there.

Lo and behold only the email showed up (no contacts). So I then Imported from outlook the old pst file and it lets you select contacts, inbox, etc. Importing the contacts in this manner worked.

Thanks to the post above that mentioned importing rather than moving the files manually.

Thanks
Saved me hours

thank you for having this space. I know enough to get into trouble with files and to poor to pay the experts at 100/hr to do it. So I really do appreciate this help! Also glad to see so many others are just as perplexed at this "Easy" task!

I used the Import/Export info I found on this site to make a back-up copy of my contact list I made for my Outlook 2007 e-mail program and put it on my Western Digital 500 MB "My Book" External Hard Drive. It of course is in .csv format of course, Question: so if my PC crashes and I lose my main e-mail info from Outlook 2007, I can Import it back into Outlook 2007 the same as if it were being moved to another Outlook program? (The scenario given was moving it from older outlook to newer I think. Thanks.

this document is excellent.....it really resolved my problem and it is really trustworthy.....thanks for this information......

Hi,
I just bought a new pc for work.
On my old pc in micro outlook i have a few folders with heaps of emails with attachments which i need to put on new pc either in outlook or a separate file.Could you please help
Cheers
Shannon

Dave,

After typing the first 2-3 letters in the "TO" box of a new email in Microsoft Outlook 2002 SP3's, several previously used "TO" email addresses pop up for your choice.

Where is the file these auto, pop-up addresses are stored? It can't be just in contacts because whenever I send a misspelled email address, it returns with error messages and still pops up even though I have not changed my contacts.

Please respond to my email address with your answer, if you will.

Thank you,

Larry Gohl

Ok so this is the issue. My old laptop broke, so i got a new one. I have an outlook email address and i want to continue using that address. I know longer have the other computer but i can access my email through cox.net Is there a way to get it into the new computer cause i installed outlook again.