Export Outlook contacts to Windows address book

An old label printing program on our office PC reads only the Windows address book, not Outlook. It worked on the XP machine and stopped after the Windows 10 upgrade.

How do I get my Outlook contacts into whatever Windows 10 uses as its address book?

Windows 10 replaced the old WAB address book with a Contacts folder, one .contact file per person, living at C:\Users\yourname\Contacts. Programs written for WAB usually read this folder through the same interface, so the odds are good your label software follows along once the folder is populated.

1

Export from Outlook first: File, Open and Export, Import/Export, Export to a file, Comma Separated Values, Contacts folder, save the CSV.

2

Open the Contacts folder: press Win+R, type shell:contacts and Enter.

3

Click Import on the folder's toolbar, choose CSV (Comma Separated Values), browse to your export and map the fields when prompted. Name, email and phone map automatically, check the address lines.

4

Point the label program at its address book source again and test a print.

If the label program predates even WAB and demands a .wab file specifically, populate the Contacts folder as above anyway, then check the program's options for a data source setting. Many old utilities let you browse to a folder or file, and shell:contacts is the modern location they need. Failing that, most label tools also accept a raw CSV, which you already have from step one.

shell:contacts was the piece I did not know existed. Imported the CSV, the label program found everything and printed. Office crisis over.