Gmail/Contacts

Overview — Introduction — Facts — Basics — Advanced — Last tips — Other

One great benefit of Gmail is that when you receive an e-mail from someone who isn't already in your contacts list, Gmail automatically saves the e-mail address and the display name. You can add more information such as this person's real name, phone number, etc. by clicking the contacts hyperlink on the left panel of the Gmail webpage once logged in. If you don't want to keep any automatic contact entries, you select the addresses you don't want and delete them.

The huge benefit of the autosave is that when you are sending a new e-mail and start to type an address, Gmail gives you a dropdown menu to select names from. For example: If I was sending an e-mail to testuser@gmail.com and my contacts had test@gmail.com, test123@gmail.com and testing@gmail.com I could just click the appropriate one after typing just "Te."

Import and Export of Contacts As Gmail has continued to grow and expand features one of the more profound areas has been in managing the export and import of contacts.

This feature is extremely useful in assisting users in a move from or to an Outlook or Outlook Express mail client.

To Export Contacts 1) Go into your contact list and notice on the top right hand portion of the contacts area the text link "Export". 2) After clicking this option a small window will open asking what type of format you would like to export your contacts to. 3) Once this decision has been made with the provided radio buttons click the "Export Contacts" button. 4) At this point you can save the file and close the small window.

To Import Contacts 1) Go into your contacts list and notice on the top right hand portion of the contacts area the text link "Import". 2) You will need to have a .csv (Comma Separated Value) file. This is typically the format that Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express export address books to. Keep in mind that additional formatting may be required for Gmail to accept the file. 3) Once this has been done you will see a failed message or see that all of your contacts are listed in this area.