Ask Leo! by Leo A. Notenboom

How do I transfer Hotmail contacts to another account?

Search First! Then browse: Categories | Full Archive | By Date | Newsletter

Home » EMail » EMail Providers » MSN Hotmail

Summary: With a little work, it is possible to transfer Hotmail contacts into another account such as Outlook Express.

How do I transfer Hotmail contacts to another account?

Transferring Hotmail contact information turns out to be slightly difficult, and certainly not obvious. While Hotmail allows you to import contacts, there doesn't appear to be any way to export them.

That's where we need to get clever.

If you can, the easiest approach is to make use of Outlook Express. If you have a premium (read: paid) Hotmail account, then you can use Outlook Express to access Hotmail accounts. Unfortunately you can no longer use Outlook Express for free Hotmail accounts. What a lot of people don't know is that you can use it to download your Hotmail contacts into your Outlook Express address book. This about.com article, Import Contacts and Email Addresses from Hotmail, gives instructions on doing exactly that.

Once you've got the contacts in Outlook Express, you can then export to a ".csv" file. (Instructions also covered in, or pointed to, by the aforementioned about.com article.) The "gotcha" here is that contacts which have been organized into groups or sub folders within contacts may not export properly. You'll need to place them at the "top level" within the contacts folder.

And finally, you log into your new or different Hotmail account, and import the CSV file into its contacts.

"While Hotmail provides for importing contacts, there doesn't appear to be any way to export them."

Another approach is to use MSN Instant Messenger as your contact management tool. Messenger contacts appear in the Hotmail address book for the same account (though not all Hotmail contacts will appear in Messenger - only those whom you've added to your Messenger contacts). Messenger includes both import and export functions for the contact list. Just log in to Messenger using one account, hit the Contacts menu, Save Contact List and save to a file. Then login to Messenger with a different account, hit Contacts, Import Contacts from a Saved File, load up the file, and you're done.

Both approaches have drawbacks, but with a little patience the task can be accomplished. And, as with most things, there are probably other approaches as well.

Related:

Article C2174 - August 30, 2004

Helpful? Get new articles weekly by email in my FREE newsletter!

Your Name:
Your Email:


Why Subscribe?

Recent Comments
46 Comments

Hello there.
I am wondering about how I can transfer my maill from hotmail to gmail. When I fill out the pop setting in gmail under "Accounts", "Add another maill account" it just shows error. I've checked out izymail but seems scetchy. Can you please advice me on how to "defeat" hotmail on this one!?:)


Thank you!!

Posted by: Henrik at February 12, 2008 4:06 PM

Leo, i just created a new GMail Google account, that I am signing Windows Live with it now, is it possible to export my contats list from my old Windows Live address to this new gmail account?
(sorry for my bad English, you can edit it if it's necessarty) Thanks a lot!

Posted by: rebakan at February 19, 2008 4:09 PM

u can if u click screen shot and shhot em all

Posted by: hhggjjhgfhjuyghj at March 20, 2008 2:02 PM

How does one transfer contacts from my yahoo mail to hotmail account

Posted by: Ranjit at May 27, 2008 12:09 AM

I would like to transfer my contacts from MSN to G-mail, but the instructions provided are not clear and I do not know how to do it. Hope u can explain. Thanks

Posted by: deranged psychopath at May 27, 2008 4:33 AM

just wanted to say this was very useful help. thanks

Posted by: Andrew at June 11, 2008 12:03 AM

how do i combine my hotmail account to my gmail account and what are the correct setting for it and also i do i access the combined addresses from outlook 2003?

Posted by: jeffrey at October 17, 2008 2:07 PM

my hotmail was stolen or hacked i want the contacts in it they are so important to me

When you started typing your comment, this text should have appeared: "Don't ask me to recover lost passwords or hacked accounts." I cannot help you. This is one of the most common reasons I so strongly recommend not keeping important things in free email accounts.
- Leo
30-Nov-2008

Posted by: mahmoud at November 30, 2008 6:59 AM

How do I transfer all my received letters from one hotmail account to another hotmail account?

I know of no way to do that, aside from individually forwarding each message to the new emali address.
- Leo
16-Mar-2009

Posted by: Ajit at March 15, 2009 4:35 PM

I just had my mail fwd'd to the new email account, then I went to the old one and sent a message to my entire contact list. I asked them to just hit reply then send.
Their reply was sent to my new email account, and I clicked on: Save new contact. Easy and takes 5 minutes on your part, but may take days for your recipients to reply.

Posted by: Linda at June 18, 2009 4:24 PM

Post a comment on "How do I transfer Hotmail contacts to another account?":






(Email Address will not be published.)

Remember Me?

By popular demand...
my tip jar
Cuppa Joe
Buy Leo a Latte!

(you may use HTML tags for style)

RSS feed Subscribe to the RSS Feed specifically for comments on this article.

Before commenting, please...

  • Read the article at the top of this page. If your comment shows you didn't, it'll be deleted and ignored.

  • Comment only on this article. Use the Google search box at the top of the page if you have a question about something else.

  • Don't include personal information in the comment. No email addresses. No phone numbers. No physical addresses.

  • Don't spam. Excessive links to unrelated sites within a comment or across multiple comments will cause all such comments to be removed.

  • Don't ask me to recover lost passwords or hacked accounts. I can't, and those comments will be deleted.

  • I can't respond to every comment. And I can't vouch for the accuracy of others who do.

Please wait. Your comment is being processed ...


Question? Ask Leo!