Importing and Exporting Contacts

Because people often have multiple email accounts from different providers, SmarterMail makes it easy for users to securely transfer contacts to and from other online address books.

Importing/Exporting Contacts

To initiate the importing or exporting of contacts, use the Actions (⋮) button at the top of your list of contacts. From the dropdown, you'll want to focus on the following:

• Import - Allows you to import your contacts from an external email client, a separate email service like Gmail, or from another SmarterMail account.
• Export All to vCard - Exports all of your contacts in the standard vCard format for importing into an email client, separate service or to another SmarterMail account.
• Export All to CSV - Exports all of your contacts in a "comma separated values" format for importing into an email client, separate service or to another SmarterMail account. CSV files can also be opened using virtually any spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel.

Importing Contacts to SmarterMail

SmarterMail supports importing contacts from two different types of files: vCards (.vcf) and comma-separated text files (.csv). It also accepts a .zip file, but keep in mind that when importing a zip, SmarterMail only pulls .vcf files out of it — any .csv files bundled into that same zip are ignored. If you need to import both vCards and a CSV file, import the zip and the CSV separately.

No single field is strictly required for a contact to import successfully. If an imported record doesn't have enough information to build a Display Name — say, a CSV row with an email address but no name columns mapped — SmarterMail does its best to generate one automatically from whatever is available (first/last name, company name, or email address, in that order), falling back to the placeholder "UNKNOWN" if nothing usable exists at all. It's still worth double-checking your source file has recognizable name data, since you'll want to go back and manually rename any contacts that end up imported as "UNKNOWN."

Follow these steps to import contacts:

1. Log in to your SmarterMail account and go to your Contacts.
2. Select Import from the Actions (⋮) dropdown.
3. The Import Contacts modal will load. Here, you can select which Contacts folder to import your new contacts to, such as the default Contacts folder or any new folders you've created.
4. Next, either drag-and-drop a CSV, VCF, or ZIP file into the upload area, or click on it to open a desktop window so you can browse to the file you want to import.
5. Choose how SmarterMail should handle contacts in your import file that appear to match ones you already have, using the Conflict Resolution dropdown:
   • Add contacts (may cause duplicates) - The default option. Every contact in the file is added as a new record, even if it looks like a duplicate of an existing contact. Choose this if you'd rather sort out duplicates yourself afterward than risk losing data.
   • Skip (do not import any contacts with potential conflicts) - Any contact that looks like it matches one you already have is left out of the import entirely, and only new, non-conflicting contacts are added.
   • Merge using existing contact values - For contacts that appear to match, SmarterMail keeps the information already in your contact list and only fills in fields that were previously empty.
   • Merge using imported contact values - The opposite of the above: for matching contacts, the incoming data from the file overwrites what's already there.
   This choice applies to every conflict found during that import — it isn't asked separately for each contact.
6. Click the Import button to finish.

Exporting Contacts from SmarterMail

Contacts can be exported individually, in bulk, or all at once, in either vCard or CSV format. These files can then be imported into Microsoft Outlook or other email clients that accept these file types, or into another SmarterMail account.

To export a single contact:

1. First, go to your Contacts.
2. Next, find the specific contact in your list, either by scrolling through your contacts or using the Search bar.
3. Once you find it, in the top right corner of the contact's card you'll see Actions (⋮). Click on that.
4. From the dropdown menu, select Export to vCard or Export to CSV.
5. A standard Save window will appear that allows you to rename the file, choose where you want the file saved, etc.

To export several specific contacts at once:

1. First, go to your Contacts.
2. Click the Select button and choose Enable Select Mode from its dropdown. This lets you pick individual contacts by clicking their cards.
3. Once you've selected the desired contacts, click on Actions (⋮)
4. From the dropdown menu, select Export to vCard or Export to CSV.
5. Again, a standard Save window will appear that allows you to rename the file, choose where you want the file saved, etc.

To export every contact in the folder you're viewing:

1. First, go to your Contacts.
2. Make sure you don't have any contacts selected. From the Actions (⋮) menu, select Export All to vCard or Export All to CSV.
3. A standard Save window will appear that allows you to rename the file, choose where you want the file saved, etc.