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.
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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
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?
It shows Contacts under Outlook Address Book.
Are you actually hooked into an Exchange server? Can you see the global address list from Outlook?
Im not sure if I’m hooked into an Exchange server. How would I do that?
If you aren’t hooked into an exchange server, then just use the contacts folder instead of the global address list.
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
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!
Very useful – thank you!
Is there a field that can be imported to delineate Contacts from Distribution Groups?
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.
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
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)
I also get the =0/…. instead of the actual email address.
Any ideas?
Regards
Peter
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.
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.
Great!
Thanks.
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!
You should be able to easily do a search and replace across the field once you’ve pulled it into Access.
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?
Easy and faster way (supported by microsoft)
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=238773
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
I successfully imported the Global Address list into Ms Access. If I make some changes how can I export it back into exchange?
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
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
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.
This worked slicker than a mule’s tooth. Thanks for the tip.
Man, this rocks!
Thanks
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 ……….
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.
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?
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
thanks, this was a super solution
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.
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
How do I find out what mail lists a user is in?
Thank you for this. Very useful.
Thanks buddy. This really rocks.
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.
Wow, nice and handy way to export
Cheers
Excellent. it helped to solve my problem.
How to import property info from Exchange database
Is this available on the Outlook 2007 version?
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?
This is a great solution! When I launch the wizard for outlook I receive an “object or class does not support set of events.” What’s causing this error msg in access? Is it a driver issue? Any help would be appreciated. I’ve run a test on another machine where the wizard works like a charm, but my pc stumbles on the above error. Suggestions?
I have outlook 2007 and access 2007, i am trying to get my contacts into a database in access, but the addresses don’t follow the names and emails, please help!! i need to make Christmas card labels!!!
I’ve been searching for this for ages!
Thank you so much!!!
Excellent short tutorial, thanks works like a dream!!
Unfortunalty, it’s not working for Outlook 2007 and Access 2007. Any idea what is different or what needs to be changed? Thanks in advance!
Hi Meikel, I just tried today and you could get the attributes of each distribution list, but not the members in list.
To get the distribution list in Access, click “External Data” -> Import -> More -> Outlook folder …
Thanks Yibing, but strange, when I try this I get after pointing to the GAL and clicking “next” the Error: “Method ‘Value’ of Object ‘Field2′ failed”
Very cool, this worked for me first time using Access 2003, however I got the same problem as “Meikel” when I tried this with Access 2007.
Same error as previous two entries with 2007.
Access import from GAL error – Method ‘Value’ of object ‘Field2′ failed
MS says this is a bug in Office 2007 SP1. They are working on a hotfix. Here is the workaround…
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM:
=============================
You are receiving the following error message when importing the Global Address List from Outlook / Exchange into Access: Method ‘Value’ of object ‘Field2′ failed
MICROSOFT PRODUCT VERSION AND SERVICE RELEASES:
===============================================
Version of Access: Access 2007 SP1
Operating System: Windows XP Pro SP3
COMPLETED ACTIONS TAKEN AND RESULTS:
======================================
At this time the best workaround to the issue if you have SP1 installed is to replace the new version of the aceexch.dll (version 12.0.6048.5000 – 12.00.6211.1000) file with a copy of the older aceexch.dll file (version 12.0.4518.1014).
The easiest way to find a copy of the older aceexch.dll file is to do a search on your XP machine and the older file most likely will be stored in a cached folder.
After you find the older file, implement the following steps:
1. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12 and rename the current aceexch.dll file to aceexch.old
2. Move the old copy of the aceexch.dll (12.0.4518.1014) into the folder (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE12)
3. Try importing the GAL into Access. It should now work successfully.
Hi there,
I tried searching for the old copy of the aceexch.dll but nothing came up. Anyone can share/send me their old aceexch.dll?
Thank you.
I am on an exchange server and can get the globoal list any suggestions. I have access and it seems to owrk as described except for the global list.
I’ve just posted this at another forum and it might be halpful, it worked for me…
If you want to export your GAL from exchange 2003 contacts just do the following:
Using Outlook 2003 create a new .pst and create an empty contacts folder,
go to the Tools menu > Address List > and once you can see all the contacts that you want to export, mark them blue and click the right hand button to select an option called “Add to Contacts”.
Then you can export your “Contacts” by using the import/export option on the “Files Menu”
Good luck,
http://techrepublic.com.com/52.....ID=3124208
Eu.