Import the Yahoo Address Book to 10.2's Address Book

Jul 24, '03 09:53:00AM

Contributed by: valmont

Mac OS X Jaguar AddressBook (v3.03) will import LDIF data, which is a Netscape/Mozilla format for address book and contact information. Yahoo lets you export all your contacts in "Netscape Addressbook" format, which is LDIF. But I found that importing my Yahoo_ab.ldif file into Address Book causes the importer to freeze half-way; it just hangs there. However, Mozilla appears to import Yahoo_ab.ldif without a glitch. So here are the steps I took to import all my Yahoo contacts into Jag's Address Book:

  1. On Yahoo's address book, go to import/export. Export your address book into Netscape Addressbook format, aka LDIF.
  2. Open Mozilla for OS X. In the bottom left-hand corner, click on the address book icon. Go to Tools -> Import, pick LDIF, and choose the Yahoo ldif file generated in step one. Let it import all your stuff, and verify all your data is there.
  3. Still in Mozilla Address Book, select Tools -> Export -> LDIF, and save it as yet another .ldif file, say moz_ab.ldif
  4. Open the Address Book application in Mac OS X, and select File -> Import -> LDIF, and pick the moz_ab.ldif file generated by Mozilla in step three.
Bickity-bam, you should be done.

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