Get your entire contact list into a spreadsheet in minutes — with the exact steps for both Excel and Google Sheets, and how to fix the most common import glitches.
A spreadsheet is the easiest way to sort, search, or bulk-edit your contacts — whether you're building a mailing list, cleaning up duplicates, or prepping a CRM import. Getting there just takes two stages: export your contacts to CSV, then import that CSV into Excel or Google Sheets.
Here's the fastest way to do both, plus the fixes for the formatting issues people run into most.
Every spreadsheet app reads CSV natively, so this is the format you want first. The Contact Exporter app generates it directly on your phone in a few taps.
Grant contacts permission the first time you open the app.
The full contact list — names, numbers, emails — is written to a CSV file instantly, on-device.
Share it to yourself via Gmail, Google Drive, or a USB cable transfer.
Go to the Data tab and choose From Text/CSV (not File > Open — this matters, see below).
Excel will show a preview with the detected delimiter and encoding.
This prevents accented names or emoji from turning into garbled characters.
Go to File > Import.
Drag the file into the Upload tab, or select it from Google Drive if you saved it there.
Sheets automatically detects UTF-8 encoding and comma delimiters, so most contact CSVs import cleanly with no extra settings.
| Excel | Google Sheets | |
|---|---|---|
| Needs installed software | Yes | No, browser-based |
| Auto-detects UTF-8 encoding | Manual setting | Automatic |
| Advanced formulas / pivot tables | Yes | Yes |
| Easy to share a link | Needs OneDrive | Built-in |
This usually happens when Excel opens the CSV with the wrong character encoding. Use Data > From Text/CSV instead of double-clicking the file, and select UTF-8 encoding when prompted.
If a contact's name or address contains a comma, some spreadsheet apps misread it as a column break. Importing through Excel's "From Text/CSV" tool (rather than opening directly) handles this correctly by respecting quoted fields.
Yes. After editing in Excel or Sheets, export back to CSV format, then import that file into Google Contacts, which will sync back to your Android phone.
Both handle CSV contact files equally well. Google Sheets is convenient because it opens directly from Google Drive with no software needed, while Excel offers more advanced formatting and formula tools if you're doing heavier data work.
$1.25 to download, then $1.20/quarter. One tap to a complete CSV backup.
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