How to Move EarthLink Web Mail Contacts to Gmail

03/17/08 UPDATE: This post is one of my most popular. If you find it useful please feel free to save to Del.icio.us, Digg this!, Share on Facebook and/or Stumble It!. The links for those services are at the bottom. Thanks!

DISCLAIMER: This is not an endorsement. It is simply the quickly researched answer to a question. Use these tips at your own risk. Also feel free to comment on tips and tricks you find that seem to work for your special needs.

This was a follow up question from my blog post last week on How to Move EarthLink Web Mail to Gmail. Someone asked how to move their personal (i.e. NOT COMPANY) web-based EarthLink email contacts to Gmail. Like the original person's question, their needs stem from the fact that they:

• Are changing ISP,
• No longer plan to use an EarthLink email account, and
• Wanted to retain their contacts list.

In their case, they want to capture their legacy EarthLink Web Mail contacts into Gmail. These steps, divided into two parts, will do all that. There is also information from Google in more general details.

Part 1: Export Address Book Contacts from EarthLink Web Mail

• Go to http://webmail.earthlink.net/
• Login with email address and password.
• Click "Preferences" on the lower left of the menu.
• Click "Export Address Book" on the Preferences menu. A pop-up window will ask you to save a CSV (comma separated value) file. Leave the name the same and have it save to your Desktop so you can find it easily.
• You know have a file with all of your contacts in it from your EarthLink Web Mail account.

Part 2: Import Address Book Contact into Gmail

• Go to http://mail.google.com/
• Login with email address and password.
• Click "Contacts" on the left side menu.
• Click "Import" on the upper right area of the Contacts web page.
• In the pop-up window, browse to find the address book file on your desktop and select it.
• Click the "Import Contacts" button. This may take a few minutes if your contacts list is especially large.
• You should soon see a message like this: "Import completed. 139 [or some number] contacts have been successfully imported."

That should do it! You should now see any contacts originally in your EarthLink Web Mail Address Book show up in Gmail's Contacts.

If you have questions, comments, suggestions or criticism, feel free to comment as needed.