How do I convert a contact list to Excel?

Converting a contact list to Excel is a great way to organize and manage your contacts. An Excel spreadsheet allows you to sort, filter, and work with your contact data in powerful ways. In this comprehensive guide, I’ll walk you through the entire process of converting a contact list to Excel step-by-step.

Why Convert Contacts to Excel?

Here are some of the key benefits of converting your contacts to an Excel spreadsheet:

• Powerful sorting and filtering – Excel makes it easy to sort and filter your contacts by name, company, location, or any other field.
• Easier contact management – You can use Excel formulas and features like conditional formatting to flag contacts for follow up.
• Custom organization – Organize your contacts into separate sheets by type, category, or priority level.
• Integration with other tools – Excel spreadsheets can integrate with CRMs, email programs, and other business software.
• Analysis capabilities – Use Excel’s pivot tables, formulas, and charts to analyze and visualize your contact data.
• Portability – Excel files are portable and can be easily imported to other programs or shared with others.

The ability to leverage these powerful Excel features makes converting to Excel one of the best ways to get more value from your contact list.

Step 1: Export Contacts from Original Source

The first step is to export your contacts from the original source where they are stored. Here are some common ways to export contacts:

• Email client – Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, etc. have options to export contacts as a CSV file.
• CRM or database – Customer relationship management tools and contact databases have export capabilities.
• Mobile devices – Smartphones allow you to export contacts through the settings or a dedicated contacts app.
• Social media – You can export connections or followers on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other social platforms.
• Website or app – Many websites and apps that store contacts provide a way to export the data.

The key is to locate the export, download, or backup contacts feature in your particular program. This will allow you to download a file containing all your contact information.

Export File Formats

You will typically have the option to export contacts in one of these file formats:

• CSV (comma separated values) – This plain text format separates contacts and fields with commas.
• VCF (virtual contact file) – A standard format for storing vCard contact information.
• XML (Extensible Markup Language) – Structured text format commonly used for data exports.

CSV format usually works best for importing into Excel, but most formats can be converted into Excel with some minor cleanup required.

Step 2: Convert Exported Contacts File to Excel

Once you’ve exported a file with your contact information, the next step is to convert that file into a format that Excel can work with. Here are a few ways to do this:

Import CSV File

If your exported contacts are in CSV format, you can directly import the CSV file into Excel:

1. Open a new blank Excel workbook.
2. Go to the Data tab and click the “From Text” button.
3. Browse to and select the CSV file, then click Import.
4. In the import wizard, ensure Comma is selected as the delimiter and the file has column headers.
5. Click Load to import the CSV data into the spreadsheet.

This will neatly load all the contact information into separate columns in Excel.

Convert to CSV and Import

If your exported contacts file is in VCF, XML, or another non-Excel format, convert it to CSV first before importing:

1. Use a free online converter tool to convert the file to CSV format.
2. Save the converted CSV file to your computer.
3. Follow steps above to import into Excel.

There are many free converters available online for formats like VCF, XML, and JSON.

Copy and Paste Data

For smaller contact lists, you can also manually copy and paste the data:

1. Open the exported contacts file.
2. Select and copy all the contact data (Ctrl/Cmd + A, Ctrl/Cmd + C).
3. Paste the data into Excel (Ctrl/Cmd + V) into the first cell.
4. Use Excel’s Text to Columns feature to split the data into separate columns.

While more tedious, this lets you import without needing a conversion tool.

Step 3: Clean Up and Organize in Excel

Once your contact data is in Excel, it’s likely the import will require some clean up and reorganization:

• Remove duplicates – Use the Remove Duplicates feature if any contacts imported twice.
• Split columns – Separate any columns with multiple values like names or location.
• Standardize formatting – Make sure fields like phone numbers and emails are consistently formatted.
• Add or remove columns – Customize the data to fit your needs by adding or removing fields.
• Create category tabs – Use separate sheets or tabs to categorize contacts by type, region, etc.

Take the time to ensure your Excel contact list is structured in a way that makes sense for how you want to manage and interact with the data.

Useful Columns to Include

Here are some commonly used contact fields to include as columns in your Excel spreadsheet:

Column	Description
First Name	First name of the contact
Last Name	Last name of the contact
Company	Company or organization name
Job Title	Contact’s job title
Email	Email address
Phone	Phone number
Address	Mailing address
City	City
State/Region	State or region
Country	Country
Postal Code	Postal or zip code
Source	Where the contact came from
Notes	Additional notes about the contact
Last Contacted	Date you last contacted them
Birthday	Birthday (if known)

Step 4: Further Organize Data with Excel

Once your contact list is in Excel, you can use a variety of Excel features to further organize, manage, and work with the data:

Separate Tabs for Categories

Use separate sheets or tabs to categorize your contacts, like having sheets for leads, customers, partners, employees, etc. This lets you better organize and filter your list.

Sort and Filter

Sort your contacts by any column, like last name, company, city, etc. The filter feature lets you show only the contacts meeting certain criteria.

Use Conditional Formatting

Apply conditional formatting rules to highlight contacts like turning overdue follow-ups red. This makes it easy to visualize priorities.

Add Formulas

Include columns with formulas, like combining first and last name into a full name column. This automates data clean up.

Link to Other Data

Use VLOOKUPs or other formulas to bring in data from another sheet. For example, link to a table of email templates or mailing addresses.

Create a Pivot Table

Pivot tables let you dynamically filter, group, and summarize your contact data for deeper analysis.

Generate Charts

Create charts and graphs to visualize your contact data. For example, chart contacts by location or account size.

Use Flash Fill

Flash fill can quickly split and clean columns of data like splitting a column with full names into separate first and last name columns.

Step 5: Import Excel Contacts Back to CRM or Email

A key benefit of converting contacts to Excel is being able to occasionally re-import the updated spreadsheet back into your original CRM, email, or database after cleaning it up.

Here are some options for importing Excel contact lists:

CRM Import

Most CRM platforms like Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot have the ability to directly import an Excel spreadsheet with contact records. This batches uploads all your contacts.

Email Client Import

Similarly, email providers including Gmail and Outlook let you import an Excel contact list into your email address book.

Website Plugin

For importing contacts back to your website database, there are plugins for platforms like WordPress and Drupal that can import Excel files.

Manual Entry

For one-off contact additions, you can manually look up contacts in Excel and enter them individually back into your original source.

Top Tips for Converting Contacts to Excel

Here are some top tips to follow when converting a contact list to Excel:

• Export from original source to CSV format if possible for easy importing.
• Be consistent with contact field formatting like phone numbers.
• Break up any combined columns like name into separate first and last name.
• Categorize your contacts into separate tabs for easier filtering.
• Use Excel formulas like VLOOKUP to reference supplemental data.
• Add columns with conditional formatting to flag records like overdue tasks.
• Periodically re-import your cleaned contacts into your CRM or email system.
• Before importing, confirm the file formats match the source platform.
• Make a backup before importing over existing data in case something goes wrong.

Conclusion

Converting your contacts to Excel provides expanded ability to organize, analyze, and manage your contact data. By following the export, formatting clean up, and import steps covered here, you can leverage the full power of Excel to get more value from your contact list. The improved sorting, filtering, formulas, pivot tables, and other capabilities can help boost your sales and marketing efforts.

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