import contacts file

Question

How do I Import my contacts file from Widows Live Mail

Answer 1

Hi Ian Smith,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A.

New Outlook can’t import a Windows Live Mail contacts database directly, you’ll first need to export your contacts to a CSV file, then import that CSV into People (Contacts) in New Outlook.

Step 1 (Windows Live Mail): Contacts > Export > Comma Separated Values (.CSV).

Step 2 (New Outlook): People > Manage contacts > Import contacts > select your CSV.

If contacts import but look blank: Outlook uses the CSV column headers to map fields. Windows Live Mail may label the email column as “E-mail Address,” which may not map automatically. Open the CSV and rename headers if needed (for example, “E-mail Address” to “Email” or “Email Address”), then import again.

UTF-8 tip (Excel): When saving your edited CSV in Excel, select CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) from the Save as type dropdown to keep special characters intact. 

If you run into any issues during import, please reply with a screenshot of the CSV headers so we can troubleshoot this further.

Please let me know if this proves useful to you, or if you would like further assistance.

I'm looking forward to your reply.

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Answer 2

To import your contacts from Windows Live Mail into Outlook, you will first need to export your contacts from Windows Live Mail to a CSV file. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Open Windows Live Mail and go to the Contacts section.
2. Select the contacts you want to export or select all.
3. Click on the File menu, then choose Export and select CSV (Comma Separated Values).
4. Follow the prompts to save the file to a location on your computer.

Once you have your contacts exported to a CSV file, you can import them into Outlook:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Go to File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
3. Choose Import from another program or file and click Next.
4. Select Comma Separated Values and click Next.
5. Browse to the CSV file you exported from Windows Live Mail, select it, and choose how you want to handle duplicates.
6. Select the destination folder (usually Contacts) and click Next.
7. Map the fields from your CSV file to the corresponding fields in Outlook if necessary, then click Finish.

This process will import your contacts into Outlook successfully.