Transfer Outlook contacts with their custom fields

Question

I need to transfer an Outlook 2010 account full setup to a new computer's Outlook 2019: emails + contacts.

After setting up the Gmail account, I moved the PST file (full account content selected during the export process), which allowed me to transfer all the emails, and after a while processing, contacts.

These contacts had custom fields in Outlook 2010, which are actually on the new Outlook, after the PST import process.

I realized I probably needed to overload these contacts through a something-else-than-PST import procedure, to get the chance to retrieve these custom fields.

After a bit of searching and sweating... I was finally able to:

1. copy/ paste from Outlook contact list to Excel (2019)
2. clean the file to my needs (mostly removing any comma and semicolon)
3. export to "CSV UTF-8 (coma-separated-UTF8 (comma delimited)"... which, out of the blue, happen to be semicolon separated
4. Move semicolons back to commas
5. Save from UTF-8 to ANSI from NotePad
6. Create the very same custom fields in the new Outlook contact targeted folder (before importing the contacts).
7. Adjust the contact list display settings to show these custom fields
8. Reach Files > Options > Advanced Options > Export > Import from another program or file > Comma separated > Select my now rocket custom fit CSV file > Replace doublons > Select the right folder > Custom Field
9. Find my custom fields from the left (From:) panel

Then finally... Realized that the custom fields I created (step 6) wouldn't show up in the right (To:) section, so that I can't match source custom fields with their target.

Therefore, whenever I complete the process, I'll still have the contacts, no doublons, but still no custom fields information!

Is there a way to make these custom fields show up in the import "To:" section, so that I can feed them with the CSV data?

Or basically, a whole other whay to import these custom fields and related data?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Sorry that I can't do the same test in my environment because support of Office 2010 has stopped and know little about Excel and CSV files.

According to your description, I noticed that you first copied/ pasted from Outlook contact list to Excel and then exported to a CSV file after cleaning the file to your needs. As I know, contacts can be exported to a CSV file from Outlook 2010, and the CSV file can be imported to your new Outlook 2019. Maybe it can save you a lot of trouble and it is suggested that you could try this way to transfer contacts.

Please refer to the following articles if you need:

Export contacts from Outlook

Import contacts to Outlook

Answer 2

Sorry, first time contributor... I have re-written my post and hope it helps.

This method involves repurposing unused Outlook default contact fields with custom data as a workaround for contact importing and exporting.

Default contact fields in this process refers to those 92 default contact fields that Outlook makes possible to be imported and exported for contacts.

This workaround is good only up to the unused default contact fields available. Example, there are 35 default contact fields I do not use, and these can be leveraged for custom data instead.

Step 1 Do a standard Outlook export of your contact data to CSV file. Sort the contacts by last name, first name, company or whatever is most convenient. You will have to mimic this sorting later, so make sure to note the sort process.

Step 2 Identify the default contact fields not being used in the export file. These fields can be repurposed for custom data.

Step 3 Open a new spreadsheet and list of all the unused default contact fields from Step 2. In a separate column list all your custom fields. This will serve as a Custom Field Reference Map matching custom field data with default fields.

Step 4 Open your Outlook application, select your contact folder and create new contact view that includes full contact name and every custom field you wish to export. Sort your contacts in the same method as in Step 1. Once done, use Ctrl-A to select and Copy all the the contact data.

Step 5 Open a new spreadsheet and Paste this Custom Contact Data.

Step 6 Open the original export contact csv file (from Step 1), copy your sorted Custom Contact Data excluding the custom field header column by column (from Step 5) based on the Custom Field Reference Map. Once again, take care that contacts are sorted identically.

Step 6 Save the CSV file with a new name and perform an import into Outlook.

From the contact table view, you can re-label the default contact field names to be viewed with your custom labels. Start by right clicking the column header in table view. Click View Settings option, then Format Column to change the label for any field that you would like modified.

Hope this helps!