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How do I import my hotmail contacts to icloud?

Hello there! I'm trying to import all my hotmail contacts to iCloud, so far in my iphone I have tree groups of contacts

1.all contacts

2.Hotmail contacts

3.iCloud contacts


Since I haven't created any new contacts on iCloud , this group appears empty in both my phone and in Icloud.com , I'm trying to import my hotmail list of contacts to icloud in both my phone and in iCloud.com, Is there a way to do this without creating all my contacts again in iCloud??

THanks!!!!

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Nov 22, 2011 7:49 AM

Reply
41 replies

Apr 15, 2012 8:32 AM in response to Jack_V123

You can bulk import a CSV into your desktop contacts application. The CSV you can export easily from Hotmail.


It's not the best solution, however.


  • It's messy. Fields get all over the place.
  • Doesn't sync at all with any updates made to Microsoft's cloud services.


Here's what I don't understand: Why is the support for Hotmail so robust on iOS devices, and so poor on the desktop? On the cheapest iPod Touch, I get cloud-synced email, calendars, contacts, and everything from hotmail. On Mac's Mail and Contacts and Calendar, nothing but POP mail. That's an odd disconnect. Maybe mail needs a rewrite on the Mac.

Apr 15, 2012 9:20 AM in response to Jack_V123

If you want your hotmail mail, contacts, and calendars on your iOS device, you're in luck. In settings, you can just pick hotmail, put in your login, and it should all come in without trouble. That's what happened with the little iPod I got. Same holds for iPad.


Unfortunately, the same does not hold for MacOS itself.


In other words, as far as syncing to hotmail/live:


iOS>OS10.


That's my experience so far.


It does not appear that there's a way to get these devices to shove the synced mail/contacts/calendars into the iCloud side of things.

May 12, 2012 11:38 AM in response to 3hru847

Follow these steps

1. Sign on to hotmail

2. Click on option on the right top corner and select more options

3. Click on exporting contacts and save it to hard drive as csv file

4. copy the contents (Select all fields) of csv file, click this link http://homepage.mac.com/phrogz/CSV2vCard_v2.html and follow the steps

5. sign on to iCloud and click on contacts

6. Drag the vCard file created in step 4 and drop it to iCloud contact


Nice work done by Developer of http://homepage.mac.com/phrogz/CSV2vCard_v2.html


All done!!

Thanks

Sep 25, 2012 11:52 AM in response to osothebear

Is the question still open?

I had the same task to do and found that it functioned only "manually" by importing each contact as a vcf file into icloud contacts. In settings of my iphone I chose icloud as the standard account for "contacts".

Then I opened a single hotmail contact, chose "send contact" -> sent it as e-mail -> to my own email account accessible on the same iphone and opened the vcf file. Then I chose "save as new contact" and found it as a new "cloud contact" in my iphone. A lot of work if you have many contacts.

Sep 26, 2012 10:12 AM in response to Jack_V123

hotmail contacts are by definition in the cloud. The issue isn't how to get them onto an iPhone (because that's pretty easy). The issue is getting them over to iCloud for good or, secondarily, getting them into the Mac's default desktop email client. The former can be done with an import of some kind. The latter is to my knowledge impossible, as the Mac desktop mail client doesn't offer "cloud" abilities with hotmail. It will link to hotmail only as a POP client and will not bring in contacts from that account -- unlike the iOS clients, which will do it.

How do I import my hotmail contacts to icloud?

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