Migrate contact groups from Entourage 2004 to Address Book

May 01, '09 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: leannely

I have not found good instructions on migrating groups created in Entourage 2004 over to Apple's Address Book, but I have found a good system. Here's how I do it:

  1. Create a temporary folder to use for the transition. I called mine contacts, and stored it on the Desktop.
  2. Open Entourage's address book. Select all of the individual contacts except for the "me" contact.
  3. Drag those contacts over to the temporary folder that you created. They will save as vCards.
  4. In Address Book, import those single contacts over, using File » Import » vCards.
  5. After the cards are successfully imported, delete them from the Entourage address book (so you are left with only the groups and the "me" card).
  6. Delete the vCards from the temporary folder -- don't delete the folder, just the vCards inside.
  7. Go back to Entourage's address book and click on the group you would like to import. Select all of the contacts inside.
  8. Control-click on the highlighted list and select Add to Address Book from the contextual menu. Those contacts now should populate the address book as individual entries.
  9. Select those contacts (except the "me" contact), drag them to your temporary folder, and import them into Address Book, as described above.
  10. After you import, create a new group (Shift-Command-N) in Address Book, and name it appropriately.
  11. Select Address Book's Last Import group to find the contacts that you just imported. Select all of these contacts and drag them into the group you just created.
  12. Delete the contacts from the temporary contacts folder, and from the Entourage address book, and repeat for each remaining group.
[robg adds: I haven't tested this one, and as a less-than-occasional user of Entourage, I don't know if there's a simpler way to do this or not.]

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