When this is the right choice
Working on your own and only want the people you met in your phone and your email? Google Contacts and Outlook both import a CSV. Contacts in your Google account show up on any phone signed in to that account with contact sync turned on. Outlook contacts are there wherever you use the same Outlook account.
Unlike a CRM, Google Contacts and Outlook on the web have no mapping step: they read the column headers. So you rename a few headers first.
Prepare the file
Export the collection from Swops (Export contacts to a CSV file). Then, as described in Prepare your Swops export for a CRM, split Name into first and last name and remove the apostrophe in front of international phone numbers. Rename the headers in the first row as below, and delete the columns you do not want.
| Swops column | Google Contacts header | Outlook header |
|---|---|---|
| First name, Last name | First Name, Last Name | First Name, Last Name |
| Company | Organization Name | Company |
| Role | Organization Title | Job Title |
| E-mail 1 - Value | E-mail Address | |
| Phone | Phone 1 - Value | Business Phone |
| Mobile | Phone 2 - Value | Mobile Phone |
| Website | Website 1 - Value | Web Page |
| Website 2 - Value | Delete, or copy into the notes | |
| Address | Address 1 - Street | Business Street |
| Country | Address 1 - Country | Business Country/Region |
| Notes | Notes (no change) | Notes (no change) |
| Collection | Labels | Categories |
| Priority | Delete, or add it to the label | Delete (Outlook has a Priority field of its own, which may expect other values) |
| Name, Captured and the AI analysis columns | Delete | Delete |
Split the names with formulas? They still need the Name column. Before deleting it, copy the First Name and Last Name columns and paste them back as values only (Edit > Paste special > Values only in Google Sheets, Paste Values in Excel).
For Google, you can add columns Phone 1 - Label and Phone 2 - Label with Work and Mobile in every row, so the numbers are labelled on your phone. One contact can carry several labels, separated by three colons, for example Automation Expo 2026 ::: Hot. Google puts details it cannot place in the contact’s notes, which is one more reason to delete what you do not need. If a column still lands in the notes, export one contact from Google Contacts as a Google CSV and copy its header for that detail.
Import into Google Contacts
On your computer, go to contacts.google.com.
On the left, click Import. No menu on the left? Click the Menu icon at the top left first.
Click Select file, choose your CSV and click Import.
Google Contacts opens the newly imported contacts when it is done. You can import up to 3,000 contacts at a time, and an account holds up to 25,000.
Import into Outlook
Outlook.com and Outlook on the web. Open People, select Manage contacts > Import contacts, click Browse, choose your CSV, select Open, then Import.
New Outlook for Windows. Open People (under More apps if it is not in the navigation bar), select Import contacts on the ribbon, then Browse, your file, Open and Import.
Classic Outlook for Windows.
Select File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
Choose Import from another program or file, then Comma Separated Values, clicking Next each time.
Browse to your CSV and choose what happens to duplicates: replace them, allow them (the default) or skip them. Click Next.
Select the Contacts folder of your account and click Next.
Click Map Custom Fields and drag any Swops column that was not matched onto the right Outlook field. Then click Finish.
Classic Outlook’s mapping step means you can skip most of the header renaming. Outlook for Mac has its own route: see Microsoft’s guide for it.
Good to know
- Header language. Outlook expects the column headers in the language Outlook itself is set to. If yours runs in Greek or German, use the headers from a contact export made in your own Outlook.
- Accents. Microsoft recommends UTF-8 files. Swops exports UTF-8; if you saved the file from Excel, choose CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv).
- Try three contacts first. Microsoft suggests it too: import a small file, check the result, then import the rest.
- Not a CRM. Priority and the business analysis have no home in an address book. Keep the Swops collection, or the CSV, for those.
The other direction
Want people to save your details? That is what My card is for: a QR code any phone camera can read, no app needed. See Set up My card and Share My card with a QR code.
Checked against Google’s and Microsoft’s help pages in October 2026: Import your contacts into Google Contacts, Import or export contacts in Outlook using a .csv file, Create or edit .csv files to import into Outlook and Import contacts from an Excel spreadsheet to classic Outlook. Menus change from time to time; if a step looks different, follow Google’s or Microsoft’s own import guide.