Gmail and all that

[RonH]

Right ... after a lot of typing and organisation, I have finally completed a Contacts list for my Gmail address.
Fantastic, its shared/updated around my devices with ease ... love it.
Saved myself a copy in .csv just in case I (or Google!) stupidly do a 'delete all' (messy .csv ... more later)
BUT
On my pc I use WLM 11 for sending/receiving all emails for POP3, Gmail and Outlook and my WLM Contacts list is ... yep, my WLM Contacts, not the nice tidy version that I have now established for my Gmail account!

Question 1. How can I safely import a Gmail Contact listing to WLM to replace the current listing? And what should I do to ensure that I have a fall-back position.

I did consider using Gmail on my pc to handle my other accounts but its handling of POP3 is functionally poor ... like 'do not delete = delete' ... this is under investigation now by Google. Also using WLM I can drag emails in any account into my WLM Storage Folders which enables me to easily store e.g. Gmails, locally on my pc. I can copy all emails and store on an external drive. I guess that all this is well known.

Question 2. What is the best way to save a legible copy of Google .csv in Excel?
My Google .csv is a download mess. It places all information in Column 1 and it has numerous Headers. Saving a 'read easy' copy in Excel seems to involve a lot of changes/deletions. I have read a lot about saving a Gmail Contact list in Excel but it seems that unless the list is 'simple' (eg name/email address/maybe street address) then the likely result is still messy ... that's my experience at least. Even in an unmodified form I would not be game to import it to a Gmail account to create Gmail Contacts ... has anyone tried?

Any guidance gratefully accepted

[HansV]

If you select the option to export as Outlook csv, you should get a neatly formatted file:

S0315.png

[RonH]

Also tried this before ... result is about the same as for Google .csv
Ron

[HansV]

Do you use comma as decimal separator?

[RonH]

Hello Hans and thanks for your efforts.
Yes, I tried 'comma' separators with much the same result. I think that there are two complications:
1. Such a large header field
2. I do fully utilise the powerful Gmail Contact listing with ...
- often multiple email addresses and mobile numbers for a contact eg I create one Contact for say multiple family members which for me is convenient
- home address
- notes

So I think I will have to accept it 'as is'. I have managed to save and print a useful copy of my Contacts now after some hours of 'moving and shaking'.

The export of a read-easy Excel doc is not critical but useful. I guess that the actual Google .csv export is the most essential, assuming that if there is a catastrophic loss of Gmail Contacts will enable this list to recreate 'as was'. Maybe I should consider a 'temporary' new Gmail test address and import this Google .csv to test the result. I need to check but I seem to recall that nowadays you can really delete a Gmail service ... don't want two Gmails hanging around!

Time for a snooze
Ron

[RonH]

To follow up on this thread.

I am going to use my Google Contacts as the address book within WLM and set WLM offline so that I do not pick up the Outlook Contacts. I have a .csv current copy of my Google Contacts and the Google Outlook versions which, as earlier explained, contains far to many headings with all appearing within 'A' column. I want to reduce to just two headings, each heading within its owncolumns ... Name/Email. Converting to Excel of either does not provide multiple columns which can easily be deleted.

How can this be achieved?

[HansV]

Try the following:
- Open the .csv file in Excel.
- Select cell A1, then press Ctrl+A.
- You have now selected all contacts.
- Activate the Data tab of the ribbon.
- Click 'Text to Columns'.
- Select Delimited, then click Next >.
- Tick the check box for comma, then click Finish.
- Perform a visual check to see if the data look OK.
- If so, remove the columns you don't want.
- Save the file. Excel will warn you, that's OK.

[RonH]

Thanks Hans ... that sorts the columns but why exporting the Google Contacts .csv is a single column I can't establish. At any rate ... sorted

[RonH]

As a follow up to sorting Gmail Contacts, I found the following information on the net and it is really easy. The work-around involves Google Spreadsheet which clearly has 'better recognition' of 'Google'.

Go to on-line Google Spreadsheet/open a new file, browse to the csv file exported from Gmail and open. Delete columns not needed then "downloaded" it to hard drive. It opened perfectly in Excel.
Maybe this will be of help to others.

[HansV]

Thanks, Ron.