How to export your contacts and email addresses from Hotmail

How to export your contacts and email addresses from Hotmail

It is possible to export your contacts from Microsoft Live Hotmail as a CSV file, which can then be imported into virtually any other email address book.

In order to export the names and email addresses of your contacts from your free MSN Hotmail account, follow the steps outlined below:

1. Select Contacts from the Hotmail navigation bar at the top of the screen.

2. Select the Print View option from the drop-down menu.

3. Use the mouse to draw attention to the contents of the table (including the headings Name, E-Mail, and Phone, as well as all your contacts).

4. To copy the table, press the Ctrl+C (Windows), Command+C (Mac), or Alt+C (Linux) keys simultaneously (Linux).

5. In Excel or OpenOffice.org, create a new spreadsheet document and name it whatever you want.

6. Select Edit > Paste from the drop-down menu.

7. Look for rows in which the E-Mail column is empty. You can sort the data by column to make it easier to find and manipulate the information.

8. If any email addresses are listed in the first column, Name, copy and paste them into the second column, E-Mail.

9. In the E-Mail column, remove any whitespace characters that appear there. In Excel, right-click on an email field and select Column > Trim from the context menu.

10. Then, in OpenOffice.org, search for and replace the string "[space:]+$" with nothing (without the quotation marks).

11. Select File > Save As from the drop-down menu.

12. Make certain that the file is saved in the CSV (Comma delimited) format (*.csv) or Text CSV format (.csv) or a similar format that contains the word "CSV."

As soon as the.csv file has been saved, you can open it in your preferred email program or service and import your contacts and their email addresses.

Is it possible that your contacts are stuck in Hotmail?

While using a free Hotmail account, you may wish to export your contacts for use in another program or service if you do not have a subscription to Hotmail Plus on your computer (maybe another free email service). Is it necessary to purchase Hotmail Plus first and then uninstall it after purchasing it?

This isn't the case at all. It is possible to export your contacts and email addresses from Hotmail to a universal format in a reasonable amount of time and with a high degree of automation, if you are willing to put in the necessary effort and time (contrast that with keying in the details again while switching between windows constantly).