How to Export Your Gmail Contacts

Export your address book to Outlook CSV, Google CSV, or vCard format

CSV button

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by Heinz Tschabitscher
An independent writer who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
Updated September 03, 2019

Gmail makes it easy to maintain an address book. Everybody you communicate with is automatically added to your ​Contacts. Additional people and data can be entered as well. Your address book isn't tied to one Gmail address. You can use it with another Gmail account or a desktop email program such as Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Yahoo Mail. To use your address book in other places, export it to CSV or vCard format.

Instructions in this article apply to the web version of Google Gmail and should work in any web browser including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.

Export Your Gmail Contacts

To export your full Gmail address book:

  1. Open Gmail Contacts. Select Google apps, then choose Contacts.

    Google Apps menu

  2. In the left panel, select More to display additional options.

    Google Contacts page

  3. Select Export.

    Google Contacts with more expanded

  4. To export an entire address book, select Contacts. Select the drop-down arrow to choose a Google Contacts group.

  5. Choose an export format:

    • The Outlook CSV format exports all data and converts names to the default character encoding.
    • The Google CSV format exports all data and uses Unicode to preserve international characters. Some email programs such as Outlook do not support Unicode.
    • The vCard format is an internet standard that is supported by many email programs and contact managers such as OS X Mail and Contacts.
    Export Google Contacts

  6. Select Export.

  7. Download the file to your Desktop. The file may be named something like gmail-to-outlook.csv (for the Outlook CSV format), gmail.csv (for Google CSV) or contacts.vcf (for the vCard format).

After the address book downloads to your computer, import your contacts to another email account or restore the contacts to the original Gmail account.

Contacts Automatically Added by Gmail

Your list and file of contacts may be large because Gmail adds new contact entries to your address book when you reply to an email or forward it to a new address. These new automatic entries are found under Other Contacts in Gmail Contacts.

To prevent Gmail from adding new addresses to your Contacts automatically:

  1. Go to Gmail and select Settings.

  2. Select Settings.

    Gmail settings menu

  3. Go to the General tab.

  4. In the Create contacts for auto-complete section, select I'll add contacts myself.

    Disable automatic contact addition on Gmail

  5. Select Save Changes.