Forum Discussion
Outlook contact CSV import corrupts existing contacts without warning
Outlook (classic) corrupts existing contacts during CSV import without any warning. When I re-import a CSV exported by Outlook itself (UTF-8 with BOM), the contacts lose their names and email ad...
That sounds like a serious issue, especially since contact data is difficult to restore once overwritten. Before importing a CSV, I always create a backup of the existing Contacts folder or export it to a PST/CSV as a safeguard. It would also be helpful if Outlook displayed a preview of the changes and a clear warning before modifying existing contacts. Hopefully Microsoft investigates this, because silent data corruption during import can have a significant impact on users managing large contact lists.