Is there anyway to import contacts from outlook express without exporting first ?

You would normally be exporting "Outlook Express Contacts" and importing into "Outlook Express" on another computer, correct?  Outlook EXPRESS at both ends?  This is just to clarify, because jaynir has provided a link to a page that describes the process for copying the Outlook EXPRESS address book into Microsoft OUTLOOK.

If I'm correct in my assumption, then there is no great secret.  The Windows Address Book is installed by Windows to support Outlook Express, but may also be updated later by versions of Microsoft Office later than 97.  The actual Address Book is just a database file with the *.WAB file extension, and will normally be found in the following folder, depending on the operating system and whether (for Win98) there are multiple profiles:

Win98 single user:
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\UserName.wab

Win98 Multiple User Profiles:
C:\Windows\Profiles\<ProfileName>\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\UserName.wab

Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\<CurrentUserName>\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\CurrentUserName.wab

The easiest ways to find the user's *.WAB file is to do a Windows search for it using   *.WAB
You can open REGEDIT and navigate to the registry key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Wab\WAB4\Wab File Name]
and there look in the Right pane at the path against the [Default] String Value.

The batch file in the Code Snippet, pasted into Notepad and saved as "FindWab.bat", will open Notepad with the full path to the user's *.WAB file ready for copying out or for doing a "Save As".  Just delete the 2nd backslash from between each of the folder names to use the path.

Open that folder in Windows Explorer and double-click on the user's *.wab file to make sure it is the one populated with contacts.  Once happy, just copy it out to some other form of storage OR use the Address Book's file menu to export to a *.wab file by any file name and to any location, such as a Flash Drive.

OK, so to import that into the user's folder on another computer, just run the batch file again on that and it will tell you where the new and empty *.wab file has been created.  Double-click to open it and make sure it is empty as expected, then take note of the name and delete it.  Copy into that same folder the *.wab file from the other computer and rename it to match the name of the file you just deleted.

All this exporting to *.csv files is unnecessary and can cause headaches with mapping the fields properly when importing.

If you ARE referring to Microsoft OUTLOOK rather than Outlook EXPRESS, then just ignore this all.

@echo off
 
Start /wait regedit /e "%TEMP%\tmpwabkey.txt" "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Wab\WAB4\Wab File Name"
 
type "%TEMP%\tmpwabkey.txt" | find /i "@" > "%TEMP%\Address_Book_Location.txt"
 
del "%TEMP%\tmpwabkey.txt" > nul
 
start /wait notepad "%TEMP%\Address_Book_Location.txt"
 
del "%TEMP%\Address_Book_Location.txt" > nul
exit
                                              

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