Export Contacts from Office 365: Detailed Steps Explained

When it comes to managing contacts, the ability to export contacts from Office 365 is a crucial skill. Whether a user is switching to a different email platform, creating backups, or copying contacts into a more accessible format, exporting contacts is a straightforward process that ensures a user retains control over important information.

Table of Content:

1. Why Do Users Export Office 365 Contacts?
2. Exporting Contacts Prerequisites
3. Need to Export Contacts from Office 365
4. Manual Steps to Export Contacts From Outlook 
5. Limitations of Manual Methods
6. Automated Tool to Export Contacts From Office 365
7. Comparison of Manual and Automated Tools
8. Conclusion
9. Frequently Asked Questions

Many users can safeguard their contacts by exporting them. This is especially important when it comes to migrating to another service or even taking regular backups. Regardless of the reason, exporting contacts from Office 365 provides users with a lot of flexibility and security.

Why Do Users Export Office 365 Contacts?

The Office 365, which is now popularly known as the Microsoft 365, is a cloud-based utility that consists of numerous applications like Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Exchange, and Teams. These types of services work as a storage of multiple emails, documents, calendars, and contacts with complete safety and security in the cloud. Among all forms of information, the Office 365 Contacts plays a crucial role by sustaining users’ professional and personal contact information that is ultimately connected to all devices.

Exporting Contacts Prerequisites

Before we begin with the steps to export contacts from Office 365, it is important to ensure that you have everything that is required to complete this process smoothly. The first thing that a user has to do is to access the Office 365 account. It could be a personal account or an account that is for work or school.

Ensure that all necessary permissions are granted. In the majority of cases, users will be able to export their contacts without needing permission if they are the account owner. However, if you are part of an organization, then you should ensure that you have the right privileges to export the data.

What is the Need to Export Contacts from Office 365?

The need to extract contacts from Office 365 arises due to the diversified purposes, such as administrative, personal, and professional ones. Whether users are required to import contacts to a different platform, or want to switch accounts, or form a safe Office 365 contact backup, extracting contacts from Office 365 is professionally crucial.

• Plenty of users across the world generally favor maintaining a lock on Office 365 contact backup to guarantee their data’s safety from online threats, leaks, accidental account deletion, or deactivation.
• During the process of how to transfer contacts from Office 365 to other clients like Outlook Desktop, Gmail, iCloud, or any email clients, backing up contacts is mandatory.
• If you migrate to a new email application, then you can easily export your contacts from Outlook and then import these into the new one.
• It keeps crucial information entirely accessible without requiring an internet connection.
• Professional experts shifting to a new enterprise often browse for how to export contacts from Office 365 with the purpose of keeping a professional connection among users.
• Efficiently sustain and preserve a well-maintained record for audits and compliances.
• Exporting contacts can help you create backups of all of your important contacts. In case an error occurs and something goes wrong with your account, you can restore it and then import them into a new account.
• to export address books from Office 365 also comes into play for resource management to access contacts in vCard or CSV format.
• Necessary for data governance and auditing agendas for types of organizations to keep a copy of their newly updated contacts.
• Useful for users who want to access their contacts in offline mode for continuous availability without completely relying on the internet connection.

Export Contacts From Outlook Manually

Once the user export all the files from Outlook, they can further narrow down the excess information and ensure that the files are formatted with the standard heading which is recognizable before importing them. Here are the steps to export contacts:

Manual Steps to Export Contacts From Outlook 365

1. Open Outlook 365 and then go to Applications.
2. Select the People option.
3. Third, click on “Manage” and then “Export contacts”.
4. Choose “All contacts” and select a folder of contacts.
5. Finally, click on the export option.

Challenges Faced by Users While Using Manual Methods

When multiple users attempt to export contacts from Office 365 with the help of Outlook or other applications, traditional techniques often have substantial limitations.

• Users must export every single contact or mailbox individually, which consumes a significant amount of their time and effort.
• Due to the repetitive process, users tend to hinder their productivity, which leads them to skip certain contact data or crucial attributes, accidentally causing data loss.
• Requires specialized expertise to properly configure the PST or CSV format during the syncing process.
• Manual technique fails to effectively export users’ contacts from Office 365 admin for numerous mailboxes due to the inefficiency of batch transfer of contacts.
• It does not provide users with a built-in mechanism to retrieve incomplete or corrupted files in their original condition if the process fails in between.
• CSV files don’t align properly when users attempt to sync contacts from Office 365 to a different client or platform.

Also Read: How to Save Outlook Email as PDF with Attachments?

Automated Tool to Export Contacts From Office 365

The process of exporting contacts from Office 365 manually is a tedious one, which can lead to a lot of issues if not done correctly. This is why it is advised that users must use an automated tool that can perform the entire process with just the click of a button. We suggest you try out one of the best tools in the industry which is the SysTools Office 365 Export Tool. This advanced software tool helps simplify the process to export Office 365 contacts to VCF format. This overcomes the limitations of the manual methods and also eliminates its needs. You can use this software to simply export Office 365 mailboxes to PST.

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Steps to Export Contacts Using the Automated Tool:

1. Download and run the software on your PC.
2. Select Office 365 as the source as well as the destination.
3. Since we are only exporting contacts from Office 365, only enable the contacts check box. Apply the date filter according to your needs, and then click on Next.
4. Login with the admin credentials of Office 365, and then click on the Validate button.
5. Now select the folder path where the contacts are going to be saved.
6. Fetch users from a source or import them using a CSV file.
7. Validate the authorization of selected users
8. Now click on the Start Export option to start the process.

Useful Traits of Using Automated Software

The professional export utility comes with multiple advantages that make it one of the best choices for IT and other professional administrators:

• The tool flawlessly export users contacts from Office 365 accounts for multiple users at the same time.
• It not only supports bulk export but also lets users take advantage of a variety of saving options.
• Users can selectively export their contacts with the help of the advanced filter, saving them from unnecessary occupancy of storage space.
• The pro tool ensures to sustain each and every contact field with name, email, phone, and notes just like the original formatting during and after the transferring process.
• Operates in a streamlined manner with all versions of Office 365, whether it is a business, education, or enterprise account.
• Completely safe, secure, and fast, and consists of the latest authentication protocols to keep cyber attacks away from users’ data information.

Distinction Between Manual and Automated Techniques

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed in detail the process to export Outlook. The process to export contacts from Office 365 whether you’re performing backups, migrating to another email service, or managing your contact information, the ability to export contacts gives users the ability to be flexible and be in control of their data.

While exploring how to export contacts from Office 365, depending on outdated techniques can prove to be complex for users required to export contacts in batch. Whereas, the experts’ suggested software utility provides a streamlined, effective, and completely secure solution to sync contacts from Office 365 in just a few clicks, resulting it to be the ideal selection for beginners, non-technical users, and users from professional enterprises.

Commonly Asked Questions by Users

Q1: How do I export Outlook contacts from Office 365 with complete safety and security?

You can use our professional export tool to extract contacts from Office 365 to any format like vCard, PST, and other saving formats, for any platform with complete safety.

Q2: Why do I need to extract contacts from Office 365?

Users might want to extract contacts from Office 365 for various purposes, such as creating backups, transfer contacts from Office 365, or migrate contact data between different CRMs or user accounts.

Q3: How do I sync contacts from Office 365?

With the help of SysTools automated tool, you can transfer contacts from Office 365 with encryption and data shield.

Q4: Do I need to have an internet connection to use this tool?

Absolutely not! You do not need to have an internet connection as this tool works well without the connection, which keeps users’ contacts and other information completely out of the internet’s reach for cyber safety.