How to restore contacts from outlook backup file

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Drive Wipe Erase storage devices data securely without leaving any traces. Your Outlook can have quite a far-reaching contact base. There might arrive a time when you need to export and back up Outlook contacts maybe collectively with some other mailbox items such as emails, notes, calendars, etc. Exporting Outlook contacts can be confusing, as there are many versions in Microsoft Outlook with different settings that vary with versions, so they require different steps to export or backup contacts.

In this article, we have tried to explain how you can export and back up Outlook contacts to various file formats. Also, we have discussed how you can take a backup of your Outlook contacts to Gmail. Considering you know that Outlook contacts can be exported to various file formats, let us state the reasons why you should need a particular file format to export your Outlook contacts.

If you already know which formats to use and want to jump to steps to export contacts, move to the later section. There can be many reasons why you might want to export contacts from Outlook. Some of the scenarios are listed below:. You might wonder what difference it makes as far as exporting is concerned. Depending on the reason, why you want to export contacts, you might need a different set of target file formats that you can choose while exporting.

Exporting or taking a backup of your Outlook contacts into various file formats involves the same procedure. Hence you can follow the steps mentioned below to export or backup Outlook contacts easily. Open the output Excel sheet and remove duplicates if there are any. To extract Outlook contacts to an Excel sheet, follow the same procedure as above, and then you can easily edit the. Your emails and email folders are stored on the IMAP server and are synched with Outlook which stores them in a local cache file on your computer.

You can lookup the location and name of the pst- or ost-file as explained in the section: Managing pst-files. Recommended backup strategy for IMAP In general, your recommended backup strategy for email is to rely on the backup and retention methods in place by the company hosting your IMAP account. Therefor, when this is not the company you work for, make sure you have a trustworthy mail provider and make yourself aware of their backup and restore services and capabilities.

Your recommended backup strategy for your Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Notes folders stored within a pst-file is similar to that of a POP3 account; Make a backup of the pst-file when Outlook is closed. Therefor, the recommended restore strategy for IMAP mail is to use the methods or processes provided by your provider to restore your mailbox or individual items.

When you have a corrupt local mail cache, the recommended restore strategy is to rename the ost-file or pst-file that contains the cache of your IMAP data to. Upon restarting Outlook, Outlook will create a new local cache file containing all the data from the IMAP mail server.

When you have stored your Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Notes data inside a separate pst-file as recommended , then your recommended restore strategy is to rename the current pst-file if still available and restore the pst-file from your backup location to its original location. Note: When you only have the ost-file pst-file of your IMAP account and wish to restore that, see the Restoring ost-files section.

When you use an Exchange account Outlook. If you want to backup your data yourself, you can use the Export and Import method. Note: When you only have the ost-file pst-file of your Exchange account and wish to restore that, see the Restoring ost-files section.

In the case of an IMAP account, it is also highly recommended to store any non-mail data like your Contacts and Calendar inside a pst-file. You can locate your pst-file by using one of the following methods;. The Data Files tab within Account Settings gives you an overview of your pst-files and allows you to easily open its location. Are you not happy with the current location of your pst-file? It is quite easy to relocate it.

When you use AutoArchive, you can also move that pst-file with a few additional clicks. Backing up the pst-file is quite easy; you just copy the pst-file to your safe location when Outlook is closed. A safe location can be any of the following:.

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You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Tell us why! More from Lifewire. How to Access Archived Emails in Outlook. How to Recover Deleted Emails in Outlook. How to Attach a Document to an Email in Outlook. How to Undelete a Message Quickly in Outlook. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Lifewire. Similar steps may be used to recover deleted contacts from Outlook and earlier editions. You may use the manual method if your PST file is small and in excellent working shape.

However, the contacts may be lost if the PST file is too large or there are too many backups. The only way to quickly and correctly restore all of your backup data is to use a third-party solution. It recovers all of the data that has been damaged, inaccessible, or destroyed by mistake in a matter of minutes.

Full and unrestricted access is granted to all of the restored data. As a consequence, you no longer need to be afraid about accidentally deleting all of your Outlook contacts since they can be easily restored with this wonderful method. On the other hand, using specialized equipment streamlines your work process.