Need to export Outlook contact groups
I am migrating a small company off of exchange 2010 into Google Business cloud service. With one exception it is going pretty good.
The exception is they have a public folder which they use only to store contact lists for the billing department. The contacts are stored in groups of 4 or 5 email addresses in a group named for the customer.
I am unable to get Outlook to export these groups into a CSV file. It just makes and empty file.
The data migration tool for GSuite got the same result. It connected, spun the wheel for a bit then said it was complete, but the contact list remains empty.
I am able to open the groups in Outlook and view the addresses. Does anyone know of a way to get this data out other than cut and paste from each group and manually creating each contact? There are about two hundred addresses. We go live on Google today at the end of the workday.
The exception is they have a public folder which they use only to store contact lists for the billing department. The contacts are stored in groups of 4 or 5 email addresses in a group named for the customer.
I am unable to get Outlook to export these groups into a CSV file. It just makes and empty file.
The data migration tool for GSuite got the same result. It connected, spun the wheel for a bit then said it was complete, but the contact list remains empty.
I am able to open the groups in Outlook and view the addresses. Does anyone know of a way to get this data out other than cut and paste from each group and manually creating each contact? There are about two hundred addresses. We go live on Google today at the end of the workday.
ASKER
CCX looks like it could have done the job, but He closed down in January. The program will not work without a registration key.
The first link confirms how to do the job one group at a time, which brings the task down to 130 groups. Better that over 500 individual contacts, but hoping for something better.
The first link confirms how to do the job one group at a time, which brings the task down to 130 groups. Better that over 500 individual contacts, but hoping for something better.
CCX looks like it could have done the job, but He closed down in January. The program will not work without a registration key.
Just for the sake of accuracy
#1 - The last CG program was discontinued mid-June '2019
#2 - CCX was only offered on an "as-is" basis and was discontinued almost 2 yrs ago on 2017/8/1 so CCX has not been tested against any current MS updates since that time (which includes various 3rd party component libraries used by the program)
#3 - Given the numbers of items you indicated for a contact group - program would function without restriction and without a registration key but if that was the only issue, would gladly provide one privately (which should not be construed by anyone as a public offering for same) but since.............
#4 - The error you reported regarding the temp data base when running CCX is not something that has ever been encountered in any of the CG programs which all use the same base initialization code, will just have to leave this as "not suitable for your requirements". FWIW - did install it on a Win10 test system to humor myself with the latest release of Office 365 and all worked as expected without any errors - at least for the quick test I did but that doesn't alter the fact that it's not working for you which is the only thing that matters.
ASKER
Is your Office installation 32 or 64 bit? I noted that CCX wanted 32 bit in the requirements. (of course after I just threw it in a gave it a spin) I'm going to try it again. If you can get it to play, I should be able to get s0mething out of it.
ASKER
Tried it again, but still only exporting the root contacts. No groups exported. Edit - Also changed Outlook profile back to exchange, and CCX does not display contents of that profile. Shows contents of profile not is use at the time..
#1 Is your Office installation 32 or 64 bit?
#2 If you can get it to play, I should be able to get s0mething out of it.
Really don't want to use EE as a support venue for anything related to CG programs especially for one that's long out of support in what sounds like a hosted Exchange environment
Re: #1 - You obviously had it running just going by the log related to Messages displayed (it requires 32Bit Office) so not at all clear as to where your error stems from.
Re: #2 - Don't know what to suggest - not something seen before something that I replicate. If it worked for you, it would have been great but that doesn't seem to be the case
If CCX did work for you, one other point for accuracy is that if all your Dist Lists were contained in one contact folder, all could be exported at one time - the limitation is that it only works on one contact folder at a time. However, to stress, just offered it as-is in case it could help - no more no less. The world of ContactGenie programs has finally come to a complete end June '2019 after some 17yrs in existence.
ASKER
Well, yes, I have 64bit Office. Okay thanks for the suggestion, but I will have to find something else.
ASKER
I found a machine running 32 bit Office and gave CCX another round. It still fails to export because it does not pull the fieldname FullName. I couldn't figure out how to work the custom fields, so still no joy there. Thanks again for the effort, just not able to get it going.
I found a machine running 32 bit Office and gave CCX another round. It still fails to export because it does not pull the fieldname FullName.
Just as a FYI - the lack of the <FullName> field is totally by design which really had no use for the intended purpose. Reasons for that were two fold which may useful information for you to know
#1 - The <Full Name> field is comprised of all the component parts <Title> <First> <Middle> <Last> <Suffix> which can result is some really strange <FullNames> if a key <name> field is missing (i.e. LastName)
#2 - The <FullName> in Outlook is governed by the "default" format which can be either <First/Middle/Last> or <Last/First> or <First/Last1/Last2> which can result in a really bizarre <FullName> field. For instance, if the default format is set for <Last.First> and all component fields are populated, you'd end up with along the lines of
Title / LastName / FirstName / MiddleName/ Suffix or
Mr. Smith, John Henry Jr.
And there are so many ways things can get screwed up depending on how a user created the info in the Contact record. A couple of old articles I had on the topic
Understanding Outlook FullName field pitfalls to avoid
https://www.contactgenie.i
Understanding Outlook FullName Parsing, FileAs and Sync'ing
https://www.contactgenie.i
(***I voluntarily retired from the Microsoft Outlook MVP program this year so haven't decided if or how much of the existing blog content is going to get updated but the above two apply to any version of Outlook right up to current Office 365)
As for <custom fields> - if the fields were defined at the contact folder level then those would appear automatically under the <UDF Folder Group> - they will either appear or they won't but what WILL NOT appear are custom fields removed from the Outlook folder and defined only at the contact item level - not a CCX thing)
Just in case you're interested in some info on Outlook custom fields (none of the info is specific or unique to any ContactGenie program, just the way Outlook deals with data and also remains valid today)
Understanding Outlook Contact Message Classes & Custom Forms
https://www.contactgenie.i
Understanding Outlook Contact User-defined fields - (in folder) - versus - (in item)
https://www.contactgenie.i
Understanding Outlook Contact User-Defined Fields in Custom Forms
https://www.contactgenie.i
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At the end of the day, all that's important is that you ended up getting to where you wanted to go :-)
ASKER
Karl took the time to respond with detailed information that probably would have worked if I had the same version of software running. Thanks again.
#1 - For the sake of this response, going to assume you're actually referring to an Outlook based contact group stored in a contact folder in an EX pub fldr versus an Exchange Global Distribution Group
#2 - To reiterate what you've already found out, there is no "export" function for Contact Groups which is different then not being able to "save" a contact group to a text file but the latter unfortunately is not a clean process. I have that described in an old article
How to save an Outlook Contact Group
https://www.contactgenie.i
At the bottom of that article, there is a reference (and link) to an old program that is no longer publicly available (took it off the market quite a while ago) - called Contact Export for Microsoft® Outlook® '2002-'2016 (32 bit) -Constant Contact® Edition. The web page describing that program still exists so not going to spend time repeating any of it now. Like I said, it's been a long time so not sure of the operational status of it is today but if interested, you're more then welcome to try it to see if it will reduce some of your time - you can download it from but to stress, it's "as-is" with no guarantees.
https://www.contactgenie.com/files/ccxsetup.zip
#3 - As for importing side of things - if CCX works for you, you will end up with a CSV file that can be used to create contact records with more info then just email name and address.