How to export contacts from Gmail

You have decided to abandon the Gmail email service because you don’t find it suitable for your needs, but you haven’t decided to create a new email address yet. Although Google’s Webmail service is tight on you, you are continuing to use it: you are not willing to lose all your precious contacts and you are looking for a way to avoid transferring them from one email to another one by one. Are you thinking of opening a secondary email address and would like to transfer all the contacts in your Google address book to it? I guess that’s why you searched the internet for information on how to export contacts from Gmail.

Well, if you find yourself in one of the situations listed or in a similar situation, know that what you are thinking about is absolutely possible and that it is not as difficult as you think; just take advantage of the special contact transfer function and that’s it. This is a procedure that shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes, I assure you.

How do you say? The topic is of interest to you but you are not particularly experienced with technology and even less with the use of computers? And where is the problem? I’m here and I can help you. If you want to know in detail how to export contacts from Gmail, all you have to do is take a few minutes of free time. You will find all the step-by-step instructions to perform this procedure in this guide of mine that I am about to offer you: you will just have to make sure you follow them carefully and put them into practice. By doing this, you will be able to transfer your entire address book from Gmail to any other email client or service with minimal effort. I wish you a good read.

Index:

• How to export contacts from Gmail (web)
• How to export contacts from Gmail (Android)
• How to export contacts from Gmail (iOS)

How to export contacts from Gmail (web)

If you want to know how to export contacts from Gmail, connect to the page dedicated to Google contacts and, if necessary, log in to your account.

At this point, if you want to export specific contacts, select them by ticking the box that appears in their correspondence when you move over them with the mouse pointer. Then click on the ⋮ button located at the top right and select the Export item from the menu that opens. Choose, therefore, whether to export the selected names in the form of a  CSV Google, CSV Outlook or vCard file (for iOS contacts)  and press the Export button to get the files with the contacts.

If you want to export all the contacts in the address book or a specific group of contacts, instead, you must click on the item  More which is located in the left sidebar of the Gmail contact management panel, then you must select the Export item that appears in bottom and, in the box that is shown on the screen, you must put the checkmark next to the item Contacts (total number of contacts). To select a specific group of contacts and not all contacts in the address book, select the name of the group you want to export from the menu that appears after ticking  Contacts (total number of contacts).

Finally, choose whether to export the contacts as a Google CSV file, Outlook CSV or vCard (for iOS contacts) and click the  Export to start the export of the address book. As you have seen, the procedure that requires you to act from the web version of Gmail is very simple to carry out.

How to export contacts from Gmail (Android)

The procedure that allows you to export contacts from Gmail using Android mobile devices is completely different as it will be necessary to have the Contacts application developed by Google.

On mobile devices Android devices, in fact, Gmail contacts are automatically synchronized with the Google account that is used to access the device; consequently, through the use of this application, you can use the list of all contacts and export.

To carry out the operation of exporting Gmail contacts via your Android smartphone, you will therefore need to make sure you have the aforementioned application. If not, you will need to download and install it on your device. To carry out this operation, then go to the Android Play Store (the colored ▶ ︎ symbol on the home screen) and, using the internal search engine, download and install the Contacts application by tapping the Install button and then the button I accept.

At the end of the installation, tap the Open button that will have appeared in the Android Play Store to start the application, or tap the application icon which will have been added on the main screen of your device. Once the application is launched, allow it to access and manage your contacts by pressing the Allow button for two consecutive times.

Then, in case you are asked, log in indicating the data of the Google account you have and for which you want the application to synchronize and import all your Gmail contacts. All contacts synchronized via the Contacts application will be visible on the main screen and you can easily export them using this Google application.

To perform the export operation, first tap on the button with the symbol of the three dots that you can see in the upper right corner. Then, from the drop-down menu you see on the screen, tap on the item Select all to select all the contacts in your Gmail account that have been synchronized with this Google application.

Then you have to tap on the button with the sharing symbol and press the Allow button, in order to authorize the application to manage contacts. Once this is done, you will be able to view the different contact sharing options so you can export and/or share them through the use of other applications or external services.

If you wish, you can also export some selected contacts, always using the Contacts application developed by Google which is present on Android mobile devices. In this case, after logging in with your Google account in the Contacts application, you will have to press the button with the three dots symbol again. However, you will have to press on the word Select in order to manually select, by putting the checkmark, the contacts you want to export.

Once the contact selection operation has been carried out, press the button with the share symbol and, through the Share with menu, choose the option that best reflects your needs regarding the export and/or sharing of contacts selected.

How to export contacts from Gmail (iOS)

Operating from iOS mobile devices it is not possible for you to carry out the procedures indicated in the previous lines relating to the export of your Gmail contacts. At the time of writing, in fact, on iOS mobile devices there is no Contacts application developed by Google.

You can, however, sync Gmail contacts to iPhone (or iPad) and then use a third-party application to export them as a VCF file. or CSV: I’ll explain how to do it below. Let’s start with the activation of the Gmail address book on iOS.

From your device’s home screen, tap the Settings app (a gear symbol ). Then scroll until you find the Account and Password item and tap on it. Then, in correspondence with the wording Account, press the Add Account button and then tap on the Google item to add your Google account and consequently import all the contacts into your iOS smartphone.

Once the Google account has been added, it will appear in the menu items of the Accounts section. Then tap on it and make sure that the lever next to the Contacts item is active. In case it is not, move it from OFF to ON to activate it and turn it green.

At this point, once you have done this, if you open the Contacts application on your iOS device you will be able to find all your Gmail contacts perfectly synchronized. From here, you can export them as a CSV or VCF file using an application like My Contacts Backup, which I told you about in detail in my tutorial on how to save the iPhone address book.