Exporting an AOL address book into Gmail
Posted on September 6th, 2006
Our son is on the verge of switching his email from AOL to Gmail. The one sticking point: moving his AOL address book into Gmail. Thanks to an article in the Washington Post and Gmail’s import help page, I did it. Sort of. Here’s how.
- Sign in to AOL and use the keyword “Communicator” to find AOL’s free email client. Download it and install it.
- Run it. Go to the addressbook. Select “All contacts” from the categories on the left. Go to File > Export and save it. You now have an LDIF file.
- If you don’t already have a copy of Thunderbird, go get yourself one. It’s free. (It’s also a damn good mail client.)
- Go to Tools > Address book in Thunderbird. In the address book do Tools > Import, and import the LDIF file you created. Thunderbird will make a new address book in the list in the left pane, so you don’t have to worry that your AOL addresses will get sprinkled among your others.
- In Thunderbird’s address book, select the address book you just imported, do Tools > Export and export it as a CSV (comma separated) file. You now have a file that Gmail can import. Sort of.
- Log into Gmail. Click on the Contacts link to the left. In the Contacts window, click on the Import link in the upper right. Browse to the CSV file and click “Import.” It’ll probably fail.
- Open the CSV file with a spreadsheet program. Delete empty columns an. Add a first row that provides a label for each column. Try using the labels “First Name,” “Last Name,” “Email Address,” “Street Address” and “Phone.” (I couldn’t get anything to import except the names and email addresses, but I gave up because it was going to be easier to manually type in the few phone numbers, etc. If you have a more complex address book, you should experiment more than I did.)
- Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file.
- Repeat step #6
- Call up AOL and tell them to bite you. They may not deserve it, but you’ve earned it.
It’s just that simple!
[Tags: aol gmail thunderbird]
Tagged with: tech
Thank you.. a lot.
It took me 3 hours to get to download AOL 9.0 AGAIN and then download Communicator from it, but it’s worth it.
Gmail successfully imported the CSV file that Thunderbird exported from my imported AOL Communicar LDIF export file (if that all makes sense). So I never had to mess around in a spreadsheet program. I did, however, lose my “groups,” which Thunderbird imported, although it left the groups empty, so I will repopulate them in Gmail later. Thanks!
I was so excited to see there was a way to transfer email address from aol to gmail. Thank you… however, I am stumped at the first step. Where do I find the keyword communicator?
I do not have aol downloaded on my comp, I access it from the web…my parents own the account. Is this communicator something they have to do from their computer? Or is there a way I can do this from my own comp? Just wondering if this is the problem or if I am missing something else.
Thank you for your time and help!
Do you know where I can download communicator?
Thanks.
I managed to find a working link to download Communicator at
http://www.aol.de/action_templ.....=592822951
You deserve an award. This is fabulous. Thank you so much!
does this work with mac?
Marilyn, it depends on whether AOL has a version of Communicator for Macs. See http://discover.aol.com/downlo.....oducts.adp
AMAZING! Even tho there were a few steps, they were all easy to follow. I didn’t have to use step #7. And I did have to reform my groups. But it was worth it!
Thanks also to R.Carlson for the link to AOL Communicator. Couldn’t find it anywhere on AOL even using the keyword. Thanks a mil!
How can I import Saved AOL emails into Gmail?
I had trouble importing saved AOL email into gmail also, but I found a way around it. All you have to do is set gmail up to forward mail from your aol account to your gmail account using POP3. If you have mail in your saved on aol folders, this will not work. What you have to do is transfer the mail in the saved on AOL folders to your regular inbox. There is no option to do this directly, but there is a way around it. Transfer the mail from the saved on aol folder to you SPAM folder. Once it is in your SPAM folder, click the button that says NOT SPAM. This will transfer the emails to your main inbox which will then be forwarded automatically to gmail. Make sure you set up gmail with POP3 to you aol account, though.
I went the easy way and purchased software that did the job without a problem. It was right around $30 and I was able to export not only my aol contacts, but also all my emails. Granted it took a while, but I just set it and let it run. Here is more information: http://www.connectedsw.com/sup.....mp;nav=0,1
Here is the actual product for those lazy folks like me: http://www.connectedsw.com/Ove.....view/57262
Very good advice, and I’m glad I found this page. Unfortunately for me, these recommendations won’t work for me. I have three problems:
1. AOL Communicator is apparently no longer available (per about.com).
2. I am using a Macintosh. The terrific software Dave linked is not Mac compatible. Does anyone know of comparable software for the Mac?
3. The biggest problem: AOL is not compatible with AOL! My old computer is running AOL 9, and my new computer is running AOL 10. AOL 10 recognizes my account, my screen name, my password, etc., but it cannot bring up the address book and saved mail that were all created in AOL 9. All of this is still available and usable when I sign in to AOL 9 on my old computer, so it hasn’t been wiped out from the AOL server. It just won’t display in AOL 10. Worse, I cannot export the address book from AOL 9; it won’t even let me select the list and copy it into a Word file. I don’t want to have to re-create the entire list manually. Furthermore, I cannot search my old mail (saved in AOL 9) on the new computer using AOL 10 either, and I desperately need to get this ability on my new system. I have to keep my old computer running Mac OS 9 just so I can get into my AOL address book and saved mail! I could install OS 9 on my new computer and run Classic so I can log into AOL 9 and 10 on the same computer, but I suspect that AOL still won’t show all the information in both systems any better than it does now (i.e., it doesn’t). AOL tech support acts like none of this should be happening and that they’ve never had a question like this before. I’ve been waiting a full YEAR for their tech dept to fix this, as they promised. Stupid AOL.
I did set up a gmail account, but I have not yet had any luck in importing anything from either version of AOL.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
cyril, AOL stores the emails, address books, favorites on your computer, not the AOL servers.
And you’re right, these are not compatible in AOL’s different versions. You’d have to search for these files (google it, their location depends on your AOL version), and then copy them onto your computer.
Boti,
I disagree. Emails, contacts and folders which are saved on AOL, are stored on their servers. That’s why you can access them from aol.com when away from your home.