Mac Outlook 2016 - Import Contacts

Anonymous
2015-11-07T08:24:58+00:00

I can't find a straightforward answer on this, so hoping you can help. I want to import a list of contacts in Excel (Mac 2016) into my Outlook (Mac 2016) contacts list. This used to be easy, but I cannot find the functions to do this now. Is this another functionality Microsoft has stripped from Mac Office or is there a way to do it?

Many thanks

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

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Anonymous
2015-11-09T15:08:29+00:00

You can't import it straight into Outlook, but there is a way around this:

• Export from Excel to a csv file.

• Import the csv file into the System Contact app (it should be fairly

straightforward, especially if all fields are properly labeled).

• Select all contacts there and drag them to the desktop to create a .vcf

• drag the .vcf into the address book where you want them imported in

Outlook.

That should do the trick.

Corentin

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-01-04T15:53:00+00:00

    Whew. Thanks for the quick reply. It did work!

    I was dragging the .vcf files into the "empty" column where Contacts should appear, which wasn't working.

    Then I tried dragging the .vcf files into the very far left column directly onto the toggled "checkbox" labeled "Address Book." All of my .vcf files appeared and worked.

    In my case, I was using Entourage and needed to move my contacts list to the new Outlook for Mac 2016. The new Outlook doesn't support importing in traditional methods. So, in summary...

    • From Entourage, I clicked "Address Book" to view all of my contacts, selected all and dragged them to a folder on my desktop (this gives you a .vcf for all contacts).

    • I then opened Outlook for Mac 2016 and clicked the "People" tab (which appeared in the bottom of my Outlook window).

    • The column Correntin noted is at the very far left with a title of "Address Book" next to a toggled checkbox.

    • From the finder I selected all of the .vcf files (that were exported from Entourage) and dragged them directly on top of the words "Address Book".

    This worked and tested out for me!

    Thanks for hanging in there Correntin. I really appreciate it.

    was looking for a solution and it did work for me.. muchos gracias!

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-01-14T00:07:27+00:00

    Corentin - Thx!  One minor change I made.  Drag and drop did not work.  I had to right mouse on VCF file and "open with" Outlook.  Done.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-01-19T23:19:21+00:00

    You can't import it straight into Outlook, but there is a way around this:

    • Export from Excel to a csv file.

    • Import the csv file into the System Contact app (it should be fairly

    straightforward, especially if all fields are properly labeled).

    • Select all contacts there and drag them to the desktop to create a .vcf

    • drag the .vcf into the address book where you want them imported in

    Outlook.

    That should do the trick.

    Corentin

    Hi Corentin,

     I need to export a CSV file into Outlook 2016 in a MAC, and I tried following yours instructions, but couldn't find this 'System Contact app'.

     Can you show some step by steps on (screenshots) on how to do it?

    Thank you in advance,

    Diego

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-02-07T08:25:06+00:00

    Dragging a .vcf file into Outlook contacts does not seem to work. Is there a size limit? I have 4000+ contacts to import.

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