How to Format a CSV for Outlook Contacts Import

Outlook has specific column name requirements for CSV contact imports. If you try to import a list from your CRM, a third-party source, or Google Contacts, you will likely need to rename the column headers before Outlook maps them correctly.

The good news is Outlook's required headers are more intuitive than Google Contacts'. "First Name" is "First Name", "Last Name" is "Last Name". But there are still gotchas — "Email" needs to be "E-mail Address", phone numbers have separate columns for business vs. home vs. mobile, and mailing addresses have a specific multi-column structure.

This guide shows you the exact column names Outlook expects and how to rename your CSV quickly using the CSV Column Mapper.

Outlook's Required Column Names

These are the headers Outlook recognizes during CSV import:

Common CSV header	Outlook expects
fname / First Name	First Name
lname / Last Name	Last Name
email / email_address	E-mail Address
work_phone / phone	Business Phone
mobile / cell	Mobile Phone
home_phone	Home Phone
company / organization	Company
job_title / title	Job Title
notes / memo	Notes
street / address	Business Street
city	Business City
state / region	Business State
zip / postal	Business Postal Code
country	Business Country/Region
website / url	Web Page

Outlook also supports personal/home address columns using "Home Street", "Home City", etc. if you have both business and personal addresses to import.

Renaming Your Columns to Match Outlook

Open the CSV Column Mapper and drop in your file. Each column shows its original name on the left and a rename field on the right.

Work through the columns using the table above as your reference. Key ones to get right:

• Email: Outlook specifically wants "E-mail Address" with the hyphen and capital A. Plain "Email" or "Email Address" will not auto-map.
• Phone columns: Outlook distinguishes Business Phone, Mobile Phone, and Home Phone. If your source just has "Phone", rename it to "Business Phone" unless you know the numbers are mobile.
• Name columns: Outlook imports "First Name" and "Last Name" correctly. If your source has a combined "Full Name" column, split it first (see the column split guide).

After renaming, delete any columns that Outlook does not support — source system IDs, custom fields, internal notes columns. Those will either get ignored or cause mapping confusion.

Preview the first 10 rows, confirm everything looks right, then download.

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What Happens During Outlook Import

To import contacts into Outlook: go to File, then Open & Export, then Import/Export. Select "Import from another program or file", choose "Comma Separated Values", and browse to your CSV.

Outlook will show you an import wizard. If your column names matched, it will map them automatically in the Field Mapping step. You will see your CSV columns on the left and Outlook fields on the right, with lines connecting them.

If a column name did not match exactly, that column will appear on the left without a connecting line — meaning it will not import. This is where you catch any missed renames. You can drag and drop to create manual mappings in the wizard, but it is easier to fix the column name in your CSV and re-import than to set up manual mappings for every row.

For large imports (thousands of contacts), always test with 5-10 rows first. Create a test CSV with the header row and a few data rows, import that, and verify every field landed correctly before importing the full file.

Migrating Contacts From Google Contacts to Outlook

This is one of the most common use cases for Outlook CSV formatting. Google exports contacts in its own format — "Given Name", "Family Name", "E-mail 1 - Value" — and Outlook expects different headers.

The mapping from Google export to Outlook import:

Google Contacts export	Outlook import
Given Name	First Name
Family Name	Last Name
E-mail 1 - Value	E-mail Address
Phone 1 - Value	Business Phone
Organization 1 - Name	Company
Organization 1 - Title	Job Title

Load your Google export into the CSV Column Mapper and do the renames above. Delete the Google-specific columns that Outlook does not need (like "E-mail 1 - Type", "Phone 1 - Type", "Group Membership"). Download and import into Outlook.

Common Outlook CSV Import Problems

A few issues that show up frequently:

Contacts import with blank fields. The column was not recognized by Outlook. Check the exact header spelling — "E-mail Address" not "Email Address". Case matters for the hyphen in "E-mail".

Phone numbers import with wrong formatting. Outlook stores phone numbers as text, so whatever format is in your CSV is what imports. If you want consistent formatting, clean phone numbers first with the CSV Sanitizer before importing.

All contacts merge into one or zero contacts appear. This usually means the file encoding is wrong. Save your CSV as UTF-8 (not Windows-1252 or ASCII) if your contacts have international characters. The Column Mapper outputs standard UTF-8.

Duplicate contacts appear after import. If you are importing into an existing Outlook contacts folder, Outlook may not deduplicate automatically. Use the CSV Deduplicator to clean duplicates out of your import file before uploading — that way you control which record is kept.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Outlook care about column order in the CSV?

Not much — Outlook maps by header name in the import wizard, not by position. Column order matters mainly for readability. That said, some older versions of Outlook have had quirks with column order; if you have problems, try keeping First Name as the first column.

Can I import custom Outlook contact fields via CSV?

Outlook supports a limited set of predefined fields for CSV import. Custom fields (user-defined fields) cannot be imported via standard CSV. You would need to use vCard (.vcf) format or a third-party sync tool for custom fields.

My export has both work and personal phone numbers. How do I handle that?

Rename the work number column to "Business Phone" and the personal/home number column to "Home Phone". Both will import to separate phone fields in the contact record. Outlook displays all phone fields in the contact detail view.

What if my CSV has 50+ columns but I only want a few in Outlook?

Delete the columns you do not want before importing. In the CSV Column Mapper, click the delete button on each unwanted column. Then rename and download the trimmed file. Smaller, cleaner imports are faster and less likely to cause mapping confusion.