How to import your Mac Address Book contacts in Hotmail?

“How can I import my Mac Address Book in Hotmail.com? It seems they don’t sync.”

I have received this question a couple of times. That’s why I decided to share the 4 simple steps on how to do it (in true lifehacking-style ;-)).

If you are using the Mac Address Book and Hotmail, you may want to be able to share your contacts between both services.
Unfortunately, a direct or true sync of your Mac Address Book with your Windows Live Hotmail Contacts is currently not possible.

What can you do? A one-time synchronization.

How? Follow these simple steps:

1. Export your contacts to vcards: File > Export > Export vCard…
2. Import in Gmail: Contacts > Import Contacts
   Tip: when importing in Gmail, you should check the box “Also add these imported contacts to New group…” and name it (e.g. Mac Contacts).
3. Export in Gmail to Outlook CSV: Contact > More > Export > Outlook CSV format
4. Import in Hotmail: Manage > Import
   Tip: make sure the option for Microsoft Outlook (using CSV) option selected

Congratulations and enjoy your Mac Address Book contacts in your Hotmail!

PS : if you are using Hotmail and don’t have a Gmail account (yet), create one first! It’s easy and free as well…

3 folders max!

3 Folders max!

In addition to Pile, don’t file, I am suggesting to get rid of all your folders and subfolders in Outlook (or whatever mailclient). It is not worth the time setting them up, structuring, changing, adding new stuff to it! So, stop doing it 😉

What’s next? Just create 3 folders instead. For me it works best if I place them as subfolders of my inbox. Less to drag ‘n drop, right! I named the last one “On hold”. Why? I park here all the (incoming) emails that require input or feedback from others before I need to process them.

My second folder is called “Followup”, because this is for all the emails I need to followup and take more than 2 minutes to execute. This is like a personal todo-list.

And finally the first folder (biggest 1!) is “Archive”. This is the pile of emails. Everything that is dealt with or doesn’t need any action or attention any more, is moved here.

How do I find mails back? Easy, with Xobni (link with LinkedIn now!) or Google Desktop. I’ll bet you, that I am faster at retrieving any mail than you and your (old) tree of folders! And I can keep up much better with larger amounts of incoming mails as well, because it takes less time to save them “somewhere”.

Enjoy this lifehack,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker

Xobni is Outlook paradise!

Xobni welcomes you to email happiness!

How? Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that indexes your messages in a smart way! You not only have lightning fast search capabilities, but Xobni exposes email’s hidden social network by also visualizing your contacts network. It shows also your threaded conversations with him/her (no need to read all messages in threads anymore!), his/her instant contact details (auto-extracted!) and a one-click list of all attachments (most recent at the top!). Very efficient! Since the first day I use Xobni, every hour I am gaining minutes when processing my emails.

Xobni also displays useful statistics about your email relationships. At the top, you see a graph that shows you the time of day when your contact sends your email. This way you know when is (not) a good time to call him/her!

Extend this life hack even more by implementing the Skype plugin (SkypeFirefoxExtension.exe is integrated in the Skype Business Version now!). This little application turns phone numbers automatically in buttons, so you can start calling right away! Handy? Yes!

Start using Xobni today and you’ll experience how efficiency grows!

Enjoy every day,

Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker

PS: of course you know that Xobni is the inverse for Inbox!