Migrate Contacts From Outlook 2016 to Office 365 -Best Method

Contacts are a very important asset of an organization. Hence it is very important to keep them in a safe environment. It is also important to always have them with you for making sure you can connect with other people. In this article, we will be talking about how you can migrate contacts from Outlook 2016 to Office 365. We will be looking at both manual and automated tools that we can use for the same.

Manual Solution to Migrate Contacts from Outlook 2016 to Office 365

There are a few manual ways that we can use to solve this problem. This a 2 steps solution. First, we have to export the contacts from Outlook as a CSV file. Then we have to import these CSV files into Office 365. Let us now look at how we can do both.

Exporting Outlook 2016 Contacts to CSV Files

Open Microsoft Outlook on your system.
Go to the upper left corner and click on the files tab.
Select the open option and then click and open the export wizard.
From there click on the import/export wizard.
When the wizard opens click on the export option.
Select the export format as CSV and click on next.
Choose a location where you want to export the file and then click on the save option.

Now that we have transferred the files from Outlook to CSV file, let us now look at how we can import these files into Office 365 contact list.

Importing CSV Files into Office 365 Account

First, go to Microsoft’s website and log in with your Office 365 credentials.
Then go import/export option and select the option” Import from another program and click on next.
When the import wizard opens select the file format as CSV and click on the next button.
If you want to import contacts that are in other file formats such as PST files then choose that option.
Browse and open the files from your local storage drive and click on the ok button.
In the next window that opens select the folder that you want to import the contacts into.

Once you have completed these steps you would transfer contacts from Outlook to Office 365 account.

Some Limitations of Using the Manual Methods

It is not suited for bulk transferring of contacts. If the user wants to transfer contacts from different outlook accounts to different Office 365 accounts then he/she has to do it one by one. This can be a major deal breaker as it would take a lot of time to individually download the contacts from each account and then upload them one by one. The manual method is more suited for a single user contact transferring at most.
Since we are doing the migration of the contacts manually there is also the chance of data loss if any of the steps are not done properly.

Professional Method to Migrate Contacts From Outlook 2016 To Office 365

As we have seen there are some major drawbacks to the manual methods that make them a dealbreaker and unusable for many users. Scenarios, where you have to migrate contacts in bulk to different accounts, are one of them. Office 365 Import Tool solves all the limitations and drawbacks the manual method has and helps users easily migrate their data to Office 365. It is one of the best in the industry and is highly trusted among users for safe and hassle-free migration.

Now let us see the steps that we have to follow to use this tool.

Open the tool after installing it on your system.
Check the checkbox” is admin” option and sign in with your admin credentials and follow through the sign-in process in the new window.
Click on the add folder/file option, browse to the path where you have your PST file, and open it in the tool.
Now we have to map all the PST files to their destination email address.
Mapping can also be done in bulk by importing a CSV file that contains this data.
Now in the workload section select contacts from the options and if needed use a filter on it.

Select all the options that you need and finally click on the import button to transfer contacts from Outlook to Office 365.

Some Additional Features of the Tool

Ability to upload PST files into Office 365 accounts using admin credentials.
Support for migrating complete data from a PST file.
Option to import PST file to Shared Mailbox in Office 365 using admin credentials.
Smart filters to filter out data before importing to Office 365 account.
Supports incremental import for importing data that failed in the first attempt or data arrived after the import process started.
Ability to maintain all parameters of mailbox like email attachments and metadata even after importing the data to Office 365.
Support for all versions of Microsoft Outlook and Windows Operating systems.

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Conclusion

In this article, we have seen how you can migrate contacts from Outlook 2016 to Office 365. We have taken a look at some of the manual methods and seen that there are limitations that come with them. Hence for a smooth and seamless experience, we recommend using the above-mentioned tool.