How to Download Your Address Book in Outlook 2016 and Prior

One of the most important parts of a comprehensive backup is making a copy of your address book. If some day you lose access to your Outlook account, you'll be glad that you exported its contents, retaining the means with which to contact your friends, family and business connections. 

Downloading your contacts also allows you to switch to another email client in a more seamless manner, so if Outlook has become too bulky for your taste, you won't have to rebuild your address book from scratch. Here are step-by-step instructions for downloading and importing your Outlook address book.  

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How to Download Your Address Book in Outlook 2016 and Prior

1. Click File.

2. Select Options from the side menu.

3. Click Advanced from the side menu.

4. Select Export under Export.

5. Select Export to a file and click Next.

6. Click Next. Here we are importing a Comma Separated Values File so we could import the address book to a program of our choice. If you are sure you want to stick with Outlook, select the Outlook Data File option.

7. Select Contacts and click Next.

8. Name your address book backup and click Next.

9. Click Finish.

Your address book has been downloaded!

How to Import Your Address Book to Outlook 2016 and Prior

1. Click File.

2. Select Open & Export.

3. Select Import/Export.

4. Select "Import from another program or file" and click Next.

5. Select the kind of Address Book file kind you're importing and click Next. Here we are importing a Comma Separated Values File.

6. Click Browse.

7. Select the file you're importing and click OK.

8. Click Next.

9. Select Contacts and click Next.

10. Click Finish.

Your Outlook contacts have been imported!

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