How to import contacts from a spreadsheet without making a mess
The import is where most contact tools trip up. Here's how to move a messy spreadsheet across cleanly.
The hardest part of any new contact system isn't the software — it's getting your existing contacts in without losing half of them or creating a hundred duplicates. Most tools assume every contact has a tidy email address. Real spreadsheets are messier than that.
Before you import: five minutes of tidying
- Put one contact per row, and give each column a clear header (name, company, phone, email, notes).
- Split full names into first and last if you can — it makes search cleaner later.
- Don't delete rows that have a phone but no email. A good directory keeps those too.
- Standardise phone numbers loosely — the import will tidy formatting, but consistency helps.
The import itself
CentralContacts accepts a CSV or a vCard export. You map your columns once, preview the result, and bring everything in — including contacts with no email address, which is exactly the kind most tools quietly drop. Duplicates are flagged rather than silently merged, so you stay in control.
A contact with a phone but no email is still a contact. Keep it.
After the import
Once your contacts are in one shared place, invite your most important ones to keep their own details current. From there the directory starts maintaining itself, and the spreadsheet you imported from becomes a backup you never open again.