Import Excel contacts to a Windows Phone

I have contacts in an Excel sheet that I want on my Windows Phone, and the phone syncs contacts through a Microsoft account.

What is the path from Excel to the phone's contacts?

The Windows Phone syncs contacts through its Microsoft account, which is the key that makes this easy, since you import to the account and the phone syncs them down, no direct phone transfer needed. The path:

1

Prepare the Excel sheet with clean headers, First Name, Last Name, Email, Mobile Phone and so on, one contact per row and save as CSV, the format the import accepts.

2

Sign in to the Microsoft account the phone uses at outlook.com, since Windows Phone contacts live in the People area of that account and go to the People section.

3

Import the CSV: in People, the Manage or Import contacts option takes the CSV and adds the contacts to the account, mapping the columns to contact fields. This lands them in the Microsoft account.

4

Let the phone sync: the Windows Phone syncs its People with the Microsoft account automatically, so the imported contacts appear on the phone within a short while, no cable or direct transfer, the account being the bridge.

The account is everything here, so confirm you are importing to the exact Microsoft account the phone is signed into, since importing to a different account puts the contacts somewhere the phone does not sync from, the common mistake. Once synced, edits made on the phone, in the account online or in Outlook all reflect through the shared account, the contacts living in the account rather than trapped on the phone, which is the Windows Phone model working as intended.

Imported the CSV to the People area of the right Microsoft account and the contacts appeared on my phone within minutes through sync, no cable needed. The confirm the exact account warning was timely, I have two Microsoft accounts and nearly used the wrong one. The account is the bridge model clicked.