Written by Jennifer Walsh. Reviewed for technical accuracy by Shubham Dixit, Independent Expert in Email Forensics and Data File Conversion.
Shubham is an independent external reviewer and not an employee of PCDOTS.
Quick answer. Google Contacts exports your address book to CSV from its built in Export menu, with no extra software. Pick Google CSV to move contacts to another Google account, or Outlook CSV that also opens cleanly in Excel. The file is a plain table, one contact per row, and you can edit it and import it straight back.
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How to export Google Contacts as CSV?
Google Contacts has its own export built in, so you do not need any extra software to get a CSV. It exports every contact you pick, keeps the fields intact, and takes under a minute.
Exporting your address book straight from Google Contacts, no software to install.
Step by step, open contacts.google.com and sign in. In the left menu choose Export, or tick specific contacts first if you only want some of them. In the export box pick your format, Google CSV or Outlook CSV, then click Export. The file downloads to your computer right away. If you would rather move contacts to a phone, choose vCard instead. That is the whole job, and it costs nothing.
What the Google Contacts CSV format looks like?
A Google Contacts CSV is just a table saved as plain text. The very first row holds the column headers, and every row after it is one contact. Commas separate the fields, which is what CSV, comma separated values, means. The reason this matters is that Google offers two CSV flavours with different headers, and picking the right one saves you a lot of cleanup later.
The first row names the columns, and each contact sits on its own row.
A Google CSV uses wide, typed headers so it can round trip back into a Google account without losing anything. A trimmed example looks like this.
Name,Given Name,Family Name,E-mail 1 – Value,Phone 1 – Value
Jane Doe,Jane,Doe,[email protected],+1 555 0100
An Outlook CSV uses shorter, friendlier headers that Outlook, Excel and most other apps expect.
First Name,Last Name,E-mail Address,Mobile Phone
Jane,Doe,[email protected],+1 555 0100
The full Google CSV has many more columns, one pair for each field type, so a phone sits in Phone 1 – Value with its label in Phone 1 – Type, and the same pattern repeats for extra emails, addresses and organisations. You do not have to fill every column to import a file. A header row with a name, an email and a phone is enough, and Google ignores blank columns.
“Nearly every failed contact import I see comes down to headers, not data. Google CSV and Outlook CSV name the same fields differently, so a file exported for one and fed to the other lands everything in the wrong column or nowhere. Export in the flavour the destination expects, or fix the header row first, and the import just works.” Shubham Dixit, Data File Conversion reviewer (draft, pending approval)
How to open the CSV in Excel?
A CSV opens in Excel like any spreadsheet, but a plain double click can mangle phone numbers and any names with accents. The clean way is to import it. In Excel open a blank workbook, go to the Data tab, choose From Text/CSV, pick your exported file, set the file origin to Unicode UTF-8 and the delimiter to Comma, then load it. Now the columns line up, the leading plus on phone numbers survives, and you can sort, edit or clean the list before saving it back as CSV. If you only wanted the contacts in a spreadsheet to read or print, you can stop here.
How to import a CSV back into Google Contacts
The same door works both ways. To bring a CSV into Google Contacts, open contacts.google.com, choose Import from the left menu, select your CSV file, and confirm. Google reads the header row, maps the columns to its fields, and adds the contacts, tucking them into a labelled group so you can check them before merging. If you built the file yourself rather than exporting it, keep the header row close to the Google or Outlook layouts above and the mapping falls into place. After importing, Google can also find and merge duplicates for you from the Contacts menu.
How to clean and convert the exported CSV?
Exports are rarely tidy. Years of contacts pick up duplicates, half empty rows and entries split across accounts, and a very large export can be awkward to open. This is where a few small tools earn their place after the export. A CSV duplicate remover strips repeated contacts in one pass, CSV Merge joins lists exported from different accounts into one file, and a CSV splitter breaks a huge export into smaller files that open quickly. If a phone or an Apple device wants vCard rather than CSV, a CSV to vCard converter turns the cleaned list into the format those devices read.
Google CSV, Outlook CSV and vCard compared
The three export formats Google offers, and where each one fits.
| Format | Best for | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Google CSV | Moving contacts to another Google account | Wide typed headers, re-imports cleanly |
| Outlook CSV | Outlook and opening in Excel | Shorter headers most apps understand |
| vCard | Phones and Apple Contacts | Not a spreadsheet, one card per contact |
Google CSV to re-import to Google, Outlook CSV for Outlook and Excel, vCard for phones.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I export Google Contacts as a CSV?
Open contacts.google.com, choose Export from the left menu, pick Google CSV or Outlook CSV, and click Export. The file downloads to your computer. No extra software is needed.
What is the Google Contacts CSV format?
It is a plain table where the first row is column headers and each later row is one contact. Google CSV uses wide typed headers like E-mail 1 – Value, while Outlook CSV uses shorter ones like E-mail Address.
How do I export Google Contacts to Excel?
Export as Outlook CSV, then in Excel go to Data, From Text/CSV, pick the file, set the origin to Unicode UTF-8 and the delimiter to Comma, and load it so the columns line up correctly.
Is there a Google Contacts CSV template?
Yes. Export a few contacts first and the file itself is your template. To build one by hand, start with a header row such as First Name, Last Name, E-mail Address, Mobile Phone and add one contact per row.
How do I import a CSV back into Google Contacts?
In contacts.google.com choose Import, select your CSV, and confirm. Google maps the header row to its fields and adds the contacts to a labelled group so you can review them.
Which field holds the phone number in a Google CSV?
The number sits in Phone 1 – Value, with its label, such as Mobile or Work, in Phone 1 – Type. Extra numbers use Phone 2, Phone 3 and so on.
Your whole address book in one clean file
Exporting Google Contacts as CSV is one of those jobs that looks fiddly and turns out to be four clicks. Use the Export menu in Google Contacts, choose Google CSV to stay in the Google world or Outlook CSV to work in Excel and elsewhere, and you have a plain table of every contact. From there you can open it, tidy it, convert it to vCard for a phone, or import it straight back, and your address book is finally something you hold rather than something locked inside one account.
