How to Move Your Gmail Contacts to a New Email Account

One of the most powerful functions of a Gmail account is the ability to store, organize and filter a detailed contacts list. However, this seemingly poses an inconvenience should you decide that you no longer want to use your Gmail account. Some people have hundreds, even thousands of contacts with detailed information about each one. Copying each of these by hand from your old account to your new one would be unfeasible. Fortunately, Google provides a way to export your Google contacts and import them into a new email account. Here's a simple step-by-step guide to moving your contacts from a Gmail account to another email account - whether that account is a new Gmail address, or an address on another server altogether.

1. Sign into your old Gmail account. This should be the account with all the contacts you want to keep.

2. Click "Contacts" at the top of the menu on the left-hand side. This will take you to your Google contacts.

3. Click the "More Actions" drop down menu located across the top of the Contacts page. You will see various additional options for handling your Google Contacts list.

4. Select "Export" to export your contacts into a file, which you'll download onto your hard drive. A pop-up window for exporting your contacts will appear with several options. You can export either only a filtered group from your Contacts (for example, "Business Associates" or "Family Members") or you can choose to export all of your contacts.

5. Decide what type of file you'd like to export your contacts into. If you're planning on transferring your contacts to another Google or Gmail account, select "Google CSV Format." If your plan is to import your contacts into Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or a similar Windows email client, select "Outlook CSV Format" in the export window. If you have an Apple computer or another email client that uses the vCard format, select the last option - "vCard CSV Format."

6. Click the "Export" button at the bottom of the pop-up window. This will download the file into your default downloads folder. In Windows XP and Windows 7, this is the "Downloads" folder under "My Documents."

7. Import your contacts into your new email account. For a new Gmail account, follow steps 1 - 3, and select "Import" from the "More Actions" drop-down menu. Follow the simple on-screen instructions to browse your computer, select your .CSV file from your hard drive, and click the "Import" button when you're done. For Outlook, Thunderbird or another email client, follow the software-specific procedure for importing your contacts .CSV into your new program.

Many web-based email programs such as Hotmail, Yahoo! and Windows Live allow you to import contacts .CSV files as well. Look in your email program's "Help" files if you're unsure how to import a contacts list. Typically, searching for "import contacts" in an email software's "Help" files will lead you to the information.

Following these simple steps will save you a lot of time and effort when changing from one email account to another. Once you're done importing your .CSV file, your contacts should show up instantaneously in your new email account. Be sure to let them all know you've changed your email address once you start using your imported contact list!