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Export Exchange Global Address List to Access

Outlook doesn't give you an option to export the Exchange Global Address list to any format. You don't even have the option to sort while searching, which drives me crazy.. If I want to see who works in the Houston office, I don't want to have to go through the entire list.

Sure, you can get your exchange administrator to export a list for you, but thankfully there's an easy way using Microsoft Access.

Prerequisite: You will need to make sure you do this on a computer that has Outlook installed and configured.

Start by opening Access, and creating a blank database. Now select File \ Get External Data \ Import

You will see a standard file open dialog. In here, you will open the drop-down menu for Files of type, and you should see Exchange() in the list:

As soon as you select that, it will automatically open the Import Exchange/Outlook Wizard. Select the Global Address List in the tree, and then hit Next. Note that you could export other lists using this same method if you wanted to.

At this point, you will be asked where you want to store the data. If this is the first time, you will just select new table. You could alternatively push the data into any table you want, but we're just going to import the whole thing.

Now you should see the new table in your database, and it will contain the entire contents of the global address list.

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. This article was written on 11/16/06 and tagged with: Access, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office

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Comments (43)

  1. Eric

    Hi, I'm trying to link my Access database to global address book in exchange. When I go use the Link Exchange/Outlook Wizard as shown in your example, I don't see the Global Address List option. Can you please tell me whats wrong. Thanks

  2. The Geek

    You need to make sure that your current outlook profile has access to the global address list, and is properly setup on the server.

    What exactly do you see?

  3. Eric

    It shows Contacts under Outlook Address Book.

  4. The Geek

    Are you actually hooked into an Exchange server? Can you see the global address list from Outlook?

  5. Eric

    Im not sure if I'm hooked into an Exchange server. How would I do that?

  6. The Geek

    If you aren't hooked into an exchange server, then just use the contacts folder instead of the global address list.

  7. June Kantner

    Thank you soooooooooo much !!!
    When I Googled for a solution, there were so many that had a gazillion steps. Your solution using Access was short and sweet.
    Thanks again,
    June

  8. Hazel

    Is there any way to do the reverse of this? I have a database of e-mail addresses that I would like to add to Outlook.

    Thanks!

  9. Aileen

    Very useful - thank you!

  10. Aileen

    Is there a field that can be imported to delineate Contacts from Distribution Groups?

  11. The Geek

    Aileen,

    I'm actually not sure. I'm assuming there would be some way to do so, but I'm not sure how at this moment.

  12. Dentz

    Hi,

    your solution works very well. But my problem is that I just don't get proper E-Mail addresses from the Exchange Server. They go like =o/……
    It would be great if you could also help me.
    Best regards,
    Dentz

  13. Steph

    That's a neat way of getting the info… fair warning to people from large companies though… it can take a loooooooooooooooong time to get the whole db.

    Oh, and some companies might be curious as to why you need the whole list :-)

    (I needed to find that one person/needle in a haystack)

  14. Peter Eden

    I also get the =0/…. instead of the actual email address.

    Any ideas?

    Regards

    Peter

  15. The Geek

    Once you pull the email addresses into the database, you should be able to do a replace across all the records to remove the invalid chars.

  16. ovidiu

    Hello everyone,

    Today I have been trying to install Microsoft Outlook 2003 and to
    configure it with an Exchange Server. The problem is that when I'm trying to connect for the first time to Outlook I have a very nice error message:

    The bookmark is not valid.

    I don't know where does it come from. I have been on several websites and they say there is a link with the Global Address List but I really don't know what to do to resolve this problem.

    I would be grateful if you could gave me an answer.

  17. Trinh

    Great!

    Thanks.

  18. Wilfried

    I also don't have email address but the data in the Email column looks like this :

    /o=SCABAL/ou=SCABAL/cn=_Scabal/cn=Contacts/cn=xxxxxxx

    (where xxxxxx is the firstname+name of the user)

    Can you help?

    Thanks!

  19. The Geek

    You should be able to easily do a search and replace across the field once you've pulled it into Access.

  20. Wilfried

    I can see no email address in the table so a search and replace doesn't work unfortunately. I work with Access 2000, is that an issue?

  21. posix99

    Easy and faster way (supported by microsoft)
    http://support.microsoft.com/?id=238773

  22. TSD

    You can also use a tool built into Windows that is located in the System directory called csvde. On your AD controller run the command below. Insure the DC= part is specific to your domain. This command dumps the file to c:\users.csv

    Use the CSV to then import into Access. This will give you the email address in X400, and SMTP.

    csvde -r "(objectClass=user)" -d "dc=*,dc=*,dc=com" -l displayName,proxyAddresses -f c:\users.csv

  23. Maha

    I successfully imported the Global Address list into Ms Access. If I make some changes how can I export it back into exchange?

  24. Ricardo Vasquez

    Hey,
    what a trick I will write down in my survival list, this is the first time that somebody ask for this thing and I did not how to accomplished this task

    Great work real geek

  25. Kathy Myers

    re: Easy and faster way (supported by microsoft)
    http://support.microsoft.com/?id=238773

    posix99 on April 5, 2007 3:31 am
    —–

    This way only exports your personal contacts that you've manually added… not all the Global Address List for the entire company. FYI for posix99.

    This worked great!! Thanks Geek!! I KNEW there was a way, when everyone in tech support was telling me NO.

    Kathy

  26. Kathy Myers

    Also, regarding getting the =/0 out of there… you don't need to. The "Alias" is the email address.. you just need to append @yourcompany.com to the end of it.

  27. jmikeh

    This worked slicker than a mule's tooth. Thanks for the tip.

  28. no need

    Man, this rocks!
    Thanks

  29. Byron Singaram

    Hi Good Day

    Iv exported my Companys Global Adress list , now i need to import it back into Outlook 2003

    Any Advice would be Appreciated

    Thanks Guys ……….

  30. Jack

    I'm getting this error:
    The MAPI store 'Contacts' is known but is not available for the current profile. This can occur if you use a profile that is designed for working offline from a server and try to link to a folder or address book on the server. The wizard is unable to link to it.

    But I can indeed use this folder from the current profile, and I'm not sure what I'd change if I created another profile to try to use instead.

    Any ideas? Many thanks.

  31. Sue

    When I look at the E-mail address column in the Global Address List I mainly see the CN as the User ID which is fine but for about 20 users I see their old Groupwise string - we used to be on Groupwise up until about 2 years ago and we are still running a Groupwise Connector. How do I make the CN for these 20 people show as their User ID?

  32. rags

    Hi : Thanks for a great solution. However, I have one small issue. When I exported data from Outlook, I am not getting the Organization information store in Exchange.

    Any Ideas? Thanks in advance

  33. Jase

    thanks, this was a super solution

  34. rae

    It almost worked for me.

    Limitation on Access of 16,300 something entries in the table.
    Yes, I'm trying to export a very large GAL. (50K+ entries)

    peace.

  35. Trev

    If there is a blank record in the GAL, only records up to the blank record will be inserted into the Access table.
    Clicking on a truly blank record in the GAL gives a popup error.
    The link below goes to someone having similar problem and explains the cause and somewhat of a solution.
    http://benchristian.com/archives/99.html

  36. John

    How do I find out what mail lists a user is in?

  37. Yusuf Moolla

    Thank you for this. Very useful.

  38. Sabeer

    Thanks buddy. This really rocks.

  39. scott swanson

    i am trying to get communications server 2007 to synch with my global address book but I have to point it to share that it resides since exchange is on a different server. Could someone please tell me what folder the gal resides and what and/or what the file extension is for it? Any assistance is appreciated.

  40. Mr Jones

    Wow, nice and handy way to export

    Cheers
    :)

  41. Siva T

    Excellent. it helped to solve my problem.

    How to import property info from Exchange database

  42. Mary Carpenter

    Is this available on the Outlook 2007 version?

  43. Michael McNally

    Regarding the problem of having "/o=SCABAL/ou=SCABAL…", etc. in the email field, I think the reason people are asking about this is that they were expecting an SMTP address that could be used to mail exchange users from a non-exchange system. At least that's what I was after. Obviously, search and replace is not going to accomplish that. Any ideas?


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