If you have contacts stored in Outlook Express or Windows Mail, you can use PeoplePC’s Simple Switch to import them directly into your Web Mail Address Book. Once these contacts are imported, you can send them an email notifying them of your new PeoplePC email address. You can start PeoplePC’s Simple Switch by double-clicking on the icon on your desktop. If you do not see this icon, you can download and install the software from My Account.

If you have contacts stored in an email program other than Outlook Express or Windows Mail, you can use the Import Address Book link in Web Mail to import them. Your other email program must be able to produce a contact list in a special file format called CSV. Please follow the detailed instructions below for this type of import.

What is a CSV File?

A comma-separated values (CSV) file holds data in a specific format where each piece of information is separated by a comma. CSV files are a popular way to transfer information from one application to another.

Comma-separated data will look something like this:

Doe, John, john.doe@mail.com
Rogers, Sarah, sarah101@mail.com
Smith, Jane, jsmith@peoplepc.com

Getting Started

The three basic steps for importing contacts into your Web Mail Address Book are:

• Step 1: Export your contacts from your email program or address book
• Step 2: Import your contact file to Web Mail
• Step 3: Decide how to handle duplicate contacts

Step 1: Export your contacts from your email program or address book

To import contacts, first save them in a CSV formatted file. Most email programs support CSV formatting.

To export your Outlook Express contacts into a CSV file, please follow the instructions below. To export contacts from other email programs, follow the instructions provided by that program.

Open Outlook Express and select File > Export > Address Book from the menu.

Choose Text File (Comma Separated Values) as the file type you want to use and then click Export.

Type in a name for your file, then select Browse and choose a location to save the file to. Click Next to continue.

Select the information you want to include for each individual contact in your export. Click Finish.

Once the export is complete, click OK.

You will be returned to the screen where you chose your file type. Click Close to return to Outlook Express.

Step 2: Import your contact file to Web Mail

Use the Import Address Book link to import your contacts from the CSV file to your Web Mail Address Book. Click the Browse button to find the CSV file with your contacts in it.

Step 3: Decide how to handle duplicate contacts

If you are importing a contact with an email address that already exists in your Web Mail Address Book, you will be given three choices for handling the duplicate account:

• Add separate contacts for all duplicates
• Ignore duplicates. The Web Mail contact information will be kept and the contact being imported will be ignored.
• Replace my Web Mail contact with the information being imported.

One of these choices must be selected before you begin the import process. If you are not sure how you want to handle duplicate accounts, we recommend selecting "Add separate contacts for all duplicates". When the import process is over, you can go into your Web Mail Address Book and delete duplicates if you wish.

Import your contacts

Select the Import Address Book button to start the process.

An "Importing Contacts" indicator will show you that your file is being imported.

When the import is complete, you will return to your Web Mail Address Book, where you will see a summary of the import process.