Add Exchange Contacts to Outlook

Summary: Are you trying to add Exchange contacts to Outlook but unable to find any professional solution? If so, in this write-up we have described the professional tool that exports contacts in bulk without any data loss. Also, we will discuss the need to export Exchange contacts and the manual solution for those users who want to use it.

Exchange Server is used globally by many users. It contains an Exchange database file, which consists of different types of mailboxes. Every Exchange mailbox contains items like emails, contacts, calendars, journals, notes, and tasks.

Information Contained by Exchange Contacts

The contacts in Exchange Server contain information in different tabs/sections such as organization, email options, mail tip, contact, and general. These tabs are the properties of mail contacts in the Exchange admin center. The methods below export the contacts saved inside a mailbox, which hold similar details such as name, email address, phone number and company.

Let’s have an overview of what type of information these tabs contain, so that users have an idea about how much important information Exchange contacts contain and why there is the need to export Exchange contacts to Outlook.

The Organization tab stores detailed information about the employee’s role in the organization. All this information is displayed in the address book.

1. Title

2. Department

3. Company

4. Manager

5. Direct Reports

The Email Option section allows users to add or remove proxy addresses for the mail contacts or they can edit the existing proxy address.

Note: This option is only available in Exchange Server, not in Exchange Online

Users can add an alert by using the Mail Tip tab to warn about a potential issue before they send a message to the recipient.

In the Contacts Information tab users can view or change their contact information like notes, fax, office, city, street, mobile/home/work phone, country/region, zip/postal code, state/province. All this information is displayed in the address book.

Users can use the General section to view or change the basic information such as display/first/last name, initials, alias, external email address, hide from the address list.

All this information in the Exchange contacts is very sensitive. If anything happens with an Exchange Server, like its .edb file gets corrupted or purged, all the information will be lost and it is very difficult to recover it.

That’s why users add Exchange contacts to Outlook, so they can use them as a backup in the future. Users are exporting their contacts to MS Outlook because it is one of the professional email clients that are widely used around the world and users are very familiar with this email application.

Approaches to Export Exchange Contacts to Outlook

There are only two different methods available that users can use to export Exchange mailbox contacts to Microsoft Outlook.

1. Manual Solution for Exporting Exchange Contacts

2. Professional Solution to Export Contacts from Exchange

First, we will discuss the manual approach to add Exchange contacts to Outlook.

Manual Solution to Export Exchange Contacts

In this approach, users should know about Exchange Server, Exchange Management Shell, because they have to run the following command in the PowerShell cmdlet.

Note: Users have to assign the Mailbox Import Export role before exporting the Exchange contacts to Outlook. The New-MailboxExportRequest cmdlet works only on Exchange on-premises (Exchange 2010 SP1 and later) and does not work on Exchange Online.

Run the command given below:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox “John” -FilePath “\\SERVER01\PSTFiles\john.pst” -IncludeFolders “#Contacts#”

After exporting the Exchange contacts to PST file format, import the Outlook Data File (PST) into Outlook to access contacts.

Novice users have to be very focused while using Exchange PowerShell. Any wrong command will create an error, and they have to know how to resolve these issues and errors.

Do not worry if you are not an IT admin or not coming from a technical background. You can try the automated approach like SysTools EDB File to PST Converter Tool , which is described in the below section to add Exchange contacts to Outlook. Any user can use this method and they do not need to be technically sound to use this approach.

Professional Solution to Export Exchange Mailbox Contacts to Outlook

If you are working in an organization then the manual approach is not workable and cannot add Exchange contacts in bulk. For the same, users can use the software because it is developed and designed for personal/technical users as well as at the corporate/enterprise level.

Besides contacts, this tool can extract mailbox from EDB file Exchange 2016/2013 and export mailbox to various file formats such as PST / PDF / MSG / MBOX / EML / HTML. If the user mailboxes are corrupted or purged, this utility provides an option (Quick & Advanced scan) to recover and repair EDB file as well as mailboxes.

Users can select the quick scan mode to repair Exchange mailbox & EDB file, and if the Exchange database file is severely damaged/corrupted, select the Advanced scan mode. This option also recovers permanently deleted mailboxes and data items from offline .edb file. Then, you can use this option to recover deleted mailbox after retention period.

The tool provides the export report in CSV file format, which contains the source file name, success count, and fail count, so that users can view the status of the exported file.

2. Simple Solution to Add Exchange Mailbox to Thunderbird

3. Best Approach to Add Exchange Email to Windows Live Mail

Key Features of Automated Software

1. The software supports both file types (EDB or STM)

2. It maintains folder structure and data integrity

3. Provides the option to filter categories such as emails, contacts, calendar, notes, tasks, journals

4. Option to decrypt (S/MIME and OpenPGP) email encryption from Exchange database mailboxes

5. Supports Exchange Server 2003 to 2019, Outlook 2003 to 2024 and Windows 11 and earlier versions

Steps to Add Exchange Contacts to Outlook: Professional Solution

Step 1: Download, Install and Run the tool.

Step 2: Click Add File > Load Exchange Database File

Step 3: Preview Exchange Mailbox > Click on Export

Step 4: Check all Exchange Mailboxes from the folder list > Select export type as PST > Click on Advance Settings

Step 5: In the Categories > Select contacts > Click on Save

Note: Category filter allows users to export only a particular type of mailbox data that has been selected by the users in the categories.

Step 6: Click on browse to set target location > Click on Export

The resultant file is exported to the target location > Import the PST file into Outlook > Finally the user can access contacts in Outlook

Bringing It All Together

In this write-up, we have discussed the need to export contacts from Exchange, and the manual and professional solutions to add Exchange contacts to Outlook. However, the manual solution has some limitations, and the professional tool mentioned above is the best approach to export Exchange mailbox contacts to MS Outlook in batch without any loss of data. It also provides advanced features that resolve database corruption Exchange 2010 / 2013 / 2016, and recover corrupted and permanently deleted Exchange mailboxes.

Looking for other email client setups? Browse our add and setup email accounts guides.