Completely Export Outlook Contacts to Excel Without Issue

  

Mark Regan
Published: February 23rd, 2026 • 8 Min Read

Summary – Want to keep your Outlook contacts saved for future use, but you are not aware of how to export Outlook contacts to Excel. In this blog post, you are going to learn the simplest ways to copy Outlook contacts to Excel using some manual methods and a professional, secure solution. After reading this blog, you can easily save Outlook contacts to Excel without facing any issues.

Sometimes, many users like you need Outlook contacts in some situations, such as to keep them for data backup, security, data migration, and others. At that moment, if you are not aware of how to extract Outlook contacts to Excel, then the moment becomes stressful and tense. But don’t worry, you are going to read the right information page.

Microsoft Outlook Contacts is a type of digital address book of users’ phone numbers, email addresses, and other business details. It is mostly used by business professionals to store their important clients and other business details. But sometimes normal users also use Outlook contacts features to store their close contacts’ information. The Export Outlook contacts to Excel sheet helps both business professionals and individual users to easily access their contacts from anywhere, at any times and from any location.

The extract Outlook contacts to Excel is not too difficult, and it can be. In this blog post, we are going to share the reasons how do move Outlook contacts to Excel. We are using both manual solutions and an automatic solution to complete the export process securely. Therefore, read this blog to get the best solution to download contacts in Excel.

Without wasting any more time, let’s go ahead and list out all of the reason in the next section for exporting Outlook contacts to Microsoft Excel.

Reasons Why Users Export Outlook Contacts in Excel

Most people extract Outlook contacts to Excel for various reasons, including data protection, portability, and backup. Below is a list of some of the most important reasons that you should look into this.

• Avoid Future Loss: normally save contacts because they fear losing data from Outlook because of account corruption or deletion, and hence save contacts in Microsoft Excel.
• Portability and Transitions: When users change their computer device or switch email system then they need to move contacts. CSV format is a universal format, and it supports Google platforms easily, so users need to export Outlook contact in Excel.
• Easy Management and Flexibility: Microsoft Excel has powerful tools that help the user in easy management of their contacts, remove duplicates, fill in the missing details of the contacts, merge similar contacts, and provide simple formatting options, giving the flexibility to manage their contact effortlessly. Due to this, users need to export to Excel.
• Use for Marketing and Professional: Some users export their contacts in Microsoft Excel to create mailing lists for office campaigns, charity events, and bulk email marketing, in which the Excel file is shared with a team make collaboration fast and efficient. Because of this, users prefer Microsoft Excel.

Due to the above reasons, most users export Outlook to Excel.

Now that we know why users want to move Outlook contacts to Microsoft Excel, we will look at the methods to export Microsoft Outlook contacts to Excel and learn how to do it in the next section.

How Do I Download My Outlook Contacts to Excel Manually?

To manually extract your Outlook contacts to Excel, you need to carefully follow some of the solutions given below.

1st Method: Export from Outlook Classic

1. Run Microsoft Outlook on your computer.
2. Click on “file” option, choose Open & Export, and hit the “Import/Export” button.
3. Pick the “Export to a file” option.
4. Click Next to reach next option menu.
5. Next, select “Comma Separated Values” (CSV).
6. Next, select the “Contacts” folder under the account that you want.
7. Then, browse the location and save the file.
8. Finally, click Finish and open the CSV file in Excel.

Loopholes of Method 1:

• This solution is only applicable for the desktop-based Microsoft Outlook application.
• The formatting and images are not saved in the CSV format in the exported file.
• The method is not useful in case of multiple accounts its might be confusing.

2nd Method: Download from New Outlook

1. Open the New Outlook on your computer system.
2. Click on “People” icon on the side navigation bar.
3. Then, select “export” option from the ribbon of Outlook.
4. Finally, click on “Export” button to export.
5. Done! Your contact is downloaded in Excel format.

Loopholes of Method 2:

• You cannot do selective export in New Outlook.
• The exported files’ format and saving location are fixed, due to which you cannot save them in your desired location and format.
• The export is slow in the case of large contact data.

3rd Method: Use of Copy & Paste

1. Open your Outlook application, new or classic, on your Windows OS.
2. Then, go to the “contact” tab by clicking on the icon of people.
3. Now, simply copy one by one by using CTRL + C of contacts’ names, numbers, emails, & other details.
4. Open the Microsoft Excel application and start pasting by using the shortcut CTRL + V on excel work book.
5. After completion, save your Excel file in CSV by using save as option from the file menu.
6. Done! You successfully save Outlook contacts to Excel.

Loopholes of Method 3:

• The copying and pasting method is time-consuming if the users have hundreds or thousands of contacts.
• High chances of delicacy of contact in the copy and paste method.
• Formatting and extra fields, such as notes, addresses, and categories, might be lost.

4th Method: Export Contact from Mac Device

1. Open Microsoft Outlook on your Mac Operating system.
2. Go to the “File” menu from the navigation bar of the Mac device.
3. Then, click on the export option from the file options list.
4. Now, uncheck other Outlook items and only check the contacts.
5. Finally, click on the continue button.
6. Done, your Outlook contacts from your Mac device are saved on excel format.

Loopholes of Method 4:

• Outlook Mac is only for Mac users, so Windows users cannot perform this action.
• With the Mac Outlook contact option, you can only export contacts; the rest of the information is not exported. If you need other information, such as a calendar or email, you have to export it separately.
• Format and pictures are not included in the CSS/Excel export of Mac Outlook.

Using the methods mentioned above, you can only export Outlook contacts to CSV. However, each method has some loopholes, which are explained after the steps, so you should be aware of them before using any method.

Now let’s take a look of automatic solution to do this export instantly.

Short Intro – In the upcoming section, you are going to know how to copy Outlook contacts to Excel without facing any single error or loopholes of manual methods, with full data integrity. The quick steps of the suggested solution will help you to complete your export process within a few clicks.

How do Move Outlook Contacts to Excel Automatically?

As you must have understood all the methods mentioned above and also known about their loopholes, due to which the manual method may seem a bit difficult to use. In such a situation, to quickly export Outlook contacts to Excel, you should use the BitRecover PST File Converter Wizard, which easily exports all your contacts to Excel without any loss. This program exports all your contacts with full data integrity and without duplication in a few clicks.

Quick Steps Automatic Solution

1. Open the recommended application on your computer system.
2. Click on the next button to start the process.
3. Now, choose the “convert configured Outlook mailbox data” option.
4. Then, click on “next” button and choose “contacts” from the preview section.
5. Click next and select the saving option “CSV” and set the destination path.
6. Next, select “encoding” format “UTF-8” or “UTF-16.”
7. Finally, click on the next button to start the export process.
8. Done, your Outlook contacts are exported to Microsoft Excel.

This given above to extract Outlook contacts to Excel is the safest way to download contact in excel.

Advantages of Automatic Solution

• This tool has multiple saving option which makes conversion of Outlook PST files to other formats such as PDF, EML, MSG, and others.
• You can directly export your contacts from its direct contacts saving option in platform-based formats such as vCard Format, Outlook format, Thunderbird contacts, Windows Live contacts, Yahoo contacts, Gmail contacts, and iCloud contacts.
• The tool is capable to done batch export of large-sized Outlook PST file contacts in Excel.
• Users can export Outlook contacts in Excel from both ANSI and UNICODE PST files.
• You can export files selectively using its filter option from specific areas such as date range, subject, sender, etc.

Final Thoughts

In this blog, we shared the major reasons why users need to export Outlook contacts to Excel. We tested and explained four manual solutions with their loopholes to copy Outlook contacts to Excel. Whereas the loopholes of manual solutions are making the export process quite tricky, due to which users might face some issues. Manual solutions are not recommended in case of emergencies. Automatic Solution exports securely and easily, without losing data integrity. The automatic solution provides multiple saving options, which are the easiest option for both individuals and businesses