Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail Information Technology Division

Information Technology Division
Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail
Exporting Outlook Distribution Lists for import into Gmail Contacts Group
https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=14024
This document contains instructions for converting an Outlook Distribution List into a Google Contacts Group. Note that
Google Contacts treats email addresses within groups differently than Outlook does. In Google, an individual contact will
be created for every person that is a member of a group. Google uses the individual contacts as the foundation for group
creation. Outlook, however, allows Distribution Lists to contain email addresses that do not appear as individual
contacts. The result of this is that your Google contact list has the potential to be significantly larger than your Outlook
Contact list, but this is normal and not cause for concern.
Step 1: Launch Outlook, browse to Contacts, and open the Distribution List that you want to move to Google. In this
example the Distribution List is named “Test”.
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Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail
Step 2: In Outlook choose >File then > Save As. You should save the list as a .txt file. Where you save it doesn’t matter just pick someplace where you can easily find it.
Step 3
Next, launch Microsoft Excel and open the file you just created.
Information Technology Division
Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail
Step 4
Upon attempting to open the file, the Excel Text Import Wizard should launch. Choose Delimited as the file type, and
then click Next.
Step 5
In the delimiters section, select Tab, Comma, and Space. This will separate the data into the appropriate columns, and
remove any leading spaces. Click Finish once you’ve selected these three Delimiters. On the next Text Import Wizard
(step 3 of 3), accept “General” and then click finish.
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Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail
Step 6
You should now be viewing a spreadsheet that’s formatted in a similar fashion to the one shown below. Now for a bit of
cleanup! Start by deleting the text that appears above your address data. This is left-over from the Outlook export and is
not needed. Also, do a quick visual inspection of the columns to make sure everything lines up properly. Address entries
from Outlook that include middle names or only an email address with no name can cause column data to line up
improperly.
Step 7
Next, insert header labels at the top of each column, and remove and extra rows between the column headers and the
first address row. The column headers should be “last name” “first name” and “email address.” The Google import
process recognizes these header names.
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Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail
Step 8
Now the data is cleaned up and you’re ready to save the file. Choose Save As, and save the file as a .csv formatted file.
This is the format the Google accepts for imports. Once again, the location where you save does not matter – put it
somewhere you can easily find it.
Step 9
When saving as a .csv file, Excel may prompt you with the message shown below. Click Yes to confirm that you wish to
save the file in .csv format.
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Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail
Step 10
Now on to the Google portion of this operation! Open your BVSD Gmail account and browse to the Contacts page. Once
there, choose the Import link from the left column in your contacts list.. You will see the dialogue box shown below.
Click Choose File and browse for your recently created .csv file. Click on Import.
Once the import is complete, a summary of activity is displayed:
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Export Outlook Distribution List to Gmail
Step 11
Your Contacts have now been added to your list in Gmail. The imported contacts will be listed as “Imported” , and the date that
they were imported.
Now you can:
1. Rename imported group. Call it what you’d like. Highlight the cantact group, choose “More” and >rename group.
2. Choose to find and merge duplicates. Choose “More” and >Find & merge duplicates.
Note: If you’ve imported a contact and do not see an e-mail address for that contact, it is likely that that person has a legal
name that is not equal to their e-mail address. We can see from the list that although brad.gefke@bvsd .org is a valid email address, Google sees Brad as Braden, and did not bring contact information across. Click on the person+ icon and
add the contact using their full and legal name. Once you have added them as a contact you can open the Desired Contact
Group and add them.
Please see link for more information on working with Google Contacts and groups.
http://support.google.com/mail/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=1669028&parent=1669024&ctx=topic