I have names, email addresses, and phone numbers in an Excel spreadsheet. Is there any way to add the phone numbers to existing people in my Contacts listings?
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Marj Green
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How Do I Add Phone Numbers From Spreadsheet To My Contacts?
Comments: 3 Responses to “How Do I Add Phone Numbers From Spreadsheet To My Contacts?”
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You can import contacts into the Contacts app via File, Import. They need to be csv files, which are plain-text spreadsheet files. So you can export a csv from Numbers, (or Excel) and then import into Contacts.
Now this is a bit tricky. The csv file has to be pretty simple with the proper header cells that exactly match the field names in Contacts. I recommend exporting into csv, then opening it up as a text file in TextEdit. Then removing all of the rows except one sample row. Then try importing that. See how it comes it and where it goes wrong. Then adjust and try again. When you get the sample row to import to a contact just like you want it, then go ahead and do that with all of the contacts.
This isn't going to be easy and it isn't going to be one-click. You are definitely going to have to work at it if you have never done it before.
Now you also said you want to add the numbers to existing contacts. If this process just creates duplicate contacts, you can always use the Card, Look for Duplicates command in Contacts and then merge them. It isn't perfect, and I'm sure you'll have some clean-up.
If you are not sure about any of this, and the number of contacts is reasonable, then you may want to just consider doing it manually. Too often we overlook the manual option. But if it takes 15 seconds to copy and past one phone number to Contacts, and there are 100 contacts, then it will only take 25 minutes or so. Or 5 sessions of 5 minutes each spread throughout the afternoon.
I've imported csv files into Contacts to create new listings. It works well. However, my contacts are all in one or more groups within Contacts. If I import the csv file as new contacts and then use the Look for Duplicates to merge them, what happens to the merged contacts? Will eacg be in my existing group structure as long as the name is the same?
Marj: I don't know what will happen. You may need to recreate the groups, you may not.