If you’re smitten by windows mobile phone like HTC, Asus or likes (just like me), and have switched your loyalties from Symbian (SE, Nokia etc.) to MS Windows mobile recently; you should find this article useful.
One of the good things about Windows Mobile is that it uses MS ActiveSync to synchronize your important data from mobile to your desktop. However, the bad thing about it is that MS ActiveSync requires MS Outlook to be available on your desktop and MS Outlook is *expensive* (Typical of M$, isn’t it 
).
Yeah, there is usually 60 day trail version offered via download with Windows Mobile,; but if you’re like me – you’d probably prefer continuing with your preferred email client and still be able to import your existing contacts to your desired windows mobile phone.
Here are steps that would enable you to import contacts to windows mobile without requiring MS Outlook.
- Install PIM Backup – First and foremost, install PIM Backup from dotfred.net, this is an excellent freeware tool and would allow you to do backups/restore on your windows mobile easily with several features.
You can just download the zip file from the link given above and unzip the .exe file and put it in appropriate directory on your windows mobile phone, and it’s ready to work. The installation is as simple as that. You have to have this application installed on your windows mobile phone; and you’d sure thank me for recommending!
- Get your contacts in CSV format – Save your contacts in plain text file in CSV (Comma Separate Values) format (Regular Windows Address book allows you to do this). Let’s call this file as contacts.csv.
- Rename the CSV file – Rename the file from contacts.csv to contacts to contacts.csc. This is a very important step to make sure that contacts get imported to your Windows Mobile
- Zip the file – Zip the file contacts.csc and create contacts.zip from it.
- Rename the ZIP file – Rename the zip file contacts.zip to contacts.pib. Again, renaming is very critical for importing the contacts.
- Copy file to your windows mobile – Copy this contacts.pib file to your windows mobile using either bluetooth or USB via file explorer of MS ActiveSync.
- Restore using PIM Backup - Run PIM Backup on your windows mobile, select “Restore” option from the drop-down, browse to the location of contacts.pib on your windows mobile. The PIM Backup will ask you to choose correct field delimiter (comma, semi-colon etc. It should be the comma if you have created default CSV file) and once you do that, it will map all fields correctly (Name, Last name, Home Phone and so on) from the pib file to contacts; press “Next” button of the PIM Backup and follow instructions there and it will have all your contacts imported successfully on your windows mobile! Allow yourself a little dance of victory & joy!
19 November 2008 at 4:06 pm |
Hi there,
When I found your posting I was delighted as activesync had just uploaded all my contacts to my Vista machine – but deleted every one of them from my TYTN11. Arrgg!
Am I doing something wrong? I follow all your steps but PIM backup just doesn’t see the zipped file? It’s visible on the TYTN by the connected Vista machine – but not visible to the PIM
Any help gratefully received. Thanks
24 November 2008 at 8:27 pm |
Hi,
My HTC P3600’s USB port seems to be broken (cant’t connect to a PC using a USB cable) so I did a stupid thing which was to do a hard reset before backing up my data. I now have the PIM information on my PC and can’t get it back to the HTC, so when I found this Post i thought my life was saved.
Well, I have followed your instructions correctly (except copying the file contacts.pib with the ActiveSync; instead I copied the file directly to the storage card) and when I try to open the contacts.pib file with the PIM Backup program I allways get the message “the format of the file “contacts.pib” is invalid.
Any help?
14 September 2009 at 5:11 pm |
Hi,
same problem here, until i use the ActiveSync – problem solved. Except the direct copy to storage card, use ActiveSync.
27 November 2008 at 7:25 am |
This is really excellent – the prospect of bluetoothing all 500+ of my contacts singly was seeming like the only option, then I found this advice.
Bless you a thousand times.
Rob
27 November 2008 at 10:27 am |
Thanks Rob for your comments!
@Tim – did you keep PIM on “Restore” mode, AFAIK, TyTN II uses Windows Mobile 6.1, so it shouldn’t have any problems at all. Just make sure you have done all steps correctly, including renaming “zip” file as “pib”.
@Al – Did you make sure that CSV is valid and renamed as csc? I had this problem when there was an unterminated string in my CSV file, once I removed it import was successful by PIM. DO crosscheck all file as you have created and renamed.
12 December 2008 at 12:39 am |
Thanks a lot for detailed step-by-step howto! You saved lot of hairs on my head %)
23 December 2008 at 9:30 am |
Hi, I am trying to follow your steps but when I wanted to restore using PIM, i’m not able to point to the contacts.pib (The contacts.pib is located in my storage card).
I renamed the contact.csv via explorer but it comes out as contact.csc.csv. Is this wrong?
23 December 2008 at 10:29 am |
@kit — You need to make sure that file is indeed “contact.csc” only. You may have to change windows folder/directory preferences to display file extensions and then change the file name. The file must be called .csc file.
31 December 2008 at 12:36 am |
ok, I screwed up. All the steps worked great, except I thought I had everything mapped correctly and I did not. How do I start over?
31 December 2008 at 12:50 am |
I restored from backup I took. Then I tried to restore again using the contacts.pib it states it is in use. I looked at my contacts and they are all there and not tied to my work outlook or windows live. It is all working (not exactly sure how it resolved).
Many Many thanks for this posting and the great referral to Dotfreds.net
Thanks Again!!!!!!!!!!
4 January 2009 at 11:57 pm |
This was fantastic! I am “trying” to learn Win Mob (I’ve been a Palm user for 15 years! My job is now including support on WinMob….) I have a new phone and 250 contacts. i don’t want to use Outlook for personal stuff and this was perfect! THANK YOU!
9 January 2009 at 3:34 am |
Hello. I tried doing this and I keep getting a format of file is invalid. I followed your instructions to the T. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
9 January 2009 at 3:35 am |
What does unterminated string mean? I may have that.
12 January 2009 at 8:07 am |
I copied pimbackup.zip to windows mobile 6.
Unzipped it on the mobile, it unzipped, created the ppcpimbackup.exe but nothing comes up under tasks.
This is a samsung sgh i617.
Any suggestions? I’m new on the mobile side, very familiar with windows xp.
Thanks for any help.
14 January 2009 at 9:16 pm |
Finally found how to run ppcpimbackup.
I used applications/file explorer to find pimbackup.
I also got message “application data\volatile\contacts.csc” already in use, so I used file explorer to get to contacts.csc in folder volatile, and deleted it, then ppcpimbackup ran ok.
15 January 2009 at 2:26 am |
To Export from Yahoo Contacts, I noticed that using “Microsoft Outlook” worked. If I used “Yahoo!Cvs” to export, my final mobile contact file would be all messed up. So using “Microsoft Outlook” to export yahoo contacts, then follow all directions. At first the contacts would not show NAME, but powering off and back on cleared this up. Neat!!! I now have 253 contacts on my windows mobile 6 samsung blackjack 2 with little effort.
Thank you for the software.
15 January 2009 at 2:30 am |
Sorry, I made one mistake above. The names still remained “unknown”, so I did have to hit “edit” and “done” for each contact to show names.
15 January 2009 at 10:40 am |
Bob, I am glad you got it working!
But names shouldn’t get mismatched if you have got them right in your CSV file.
16 January 2009 at 1:12 am |
The only name that remains missing or “unknown” is the “file-as” or full name. By using excel on the laptop, on the cvs file to add a field “name” as the first field, which contains first and last name “B2&” “&C2, then continue the process worked. Contacts now shows name rather than unknown. I think that earlier I was putting a coma (,) in the name, and it messed up the restore.
NOW EVERTHING WORKS GREAT!!!!! Thanks again.
17 January 2009 at 11:50 am |
Thank you! This solution worked very nicely. No problems at all when procedure is followed as provided. I’ve spent the better part of a day trying to recover my contacts on Win Mob Pro 6.1, which I had deleted in prep to reload my new smartphone (HTC Fuze) with cleaned up contact info.
I got creative with merging contacts from my old phone SIM with cleaned up contacts from a variety of sources. The part where I assumed that MS active synch would repopulate contacts on my smartphone is where I went off the road. I’m stunned that this turned out to be such a pain. No thanks to MS for trying to corner people into using Outlook to manage their smartphone contacts.
17 January 2009 at 10:38 pm |
Thank you very much, I really did not want to by new version of outlook.
20 January 2009 at 10:29 pm |
Dear Manish, this is an excellent working instruction. Congratulations!
22 January 2009 at 8:06 am |
I have a sgh-i617 I highlighted the second windows pc. I had windows pc and windows pc 2 and I deleted #2. I then went to my handbook contact menu from the today screen and all of my contacts had been deleted! how in the world do I get them back
please help!
23 January 2009 at 8:55 am |
I am still seeing unknown… my csv file is like this
“Title”,”First name”,”Middle name”,”
“”,”",”",”A”,”",”",”",”",”",”",”",”",”",”",”*#
any issue with this?
25 January 2009 at 1:02 am |
hi, is there anyway for the opposite process. ie copying contacts from my windows mobile to pc which dont have outlook..?
27 January 2009 at 10:59 am |
@ Aravind – you can do this with PIM Backup. Take backup in text mode and then transfer it on your computer and use it the way you want.
28 January 2009 at 4:17 pm |
Hello,
my HTC touch just dead, i think the board fried. Last week i managed to COPY all data from memory and storage card.
My question is, where is my address book on the files? I have open all copied folder but could not find anything which could salvage all my address book.
Anyone willing to help?
Thanks
29 January 2009 at 2:37 am |
Manish (or anyone else)–
I have contacts on an old smartphone running windows 5.0 mobile…
I am interested in getting them imported onto my desktop (without outlook) any ideas on how to do this?
Thanks
BD
9 February 2009 at 2:21 pm |
Hi Manish, Just wondering if it is possible to export the contacts in windows csv format from Windows Mobile. Somehow my mobile and outlook do not sync up. So just to have all the contacts backup I wanted to have this option.
Thanks
21 February 2009 at 11:20 pm |
Hi, thanks for this excellent tip.
works very well. Only thing is that the CSV filw has to be edited to put a field name that is taken as file as. otherwise it appears as unknown in the contacts.
thanks again
24 February 2009 at 7:28 pm |
Yes. Do I really have to change each contacts “file as” value to be able to see the name in the list. I have 500!
11 March 2009 at 10:53 am |
Thank you SO MUCH!!!
11 March 2009 at 10:59 pm |
Re: the File As . . . I’m using Win Mobile 6 and what I had to do was use excel to manipulate the csv . . . In my csv I had first name, last name, mobile, home, work, fileas
I used a formula to concatenate the lastname, a comma and space, and the first name. Then I copied that column and pasted the values only into it. I took that csv and followed the instructions on this website.
When I got to the point of mapping the data, I mapped fileas to the “Name” field.
Also note, I had to delete the contacts in the volatile folder of the phone before I was able to run the restore.
Hope that helps!
Jerry
15 March 2009 at 2:20 am |
Thanks a lot.. Very useful…. if u dont miss any steps, its cake walk…
16 March 2009 at 12:09 am |
absolutely brilliant piece of work!
i was pulling hair out as i dont have the cd to enable the import/export engine on outlook.
good job!
16 March 2009 at 1:51 am |
Well on second look, all the contacts i’ve imported come up at UNKNOWN, and there is only the name information in the contact card itself. no phone numbers
25 March 2009 at 1:39 pm |
how to rename .csv to .csc and .zip to .pib ,
please make me clear , it will be very helpful
25 March 2009 at 5:41 pm |
Hi
i got how to change it but when i restored only i am getting name and not mobile number do no why . please help me
12 April 2009 at 2:31 pm |
Hi..
Thanks for the step by step updation. I did everything according your suggestions, but, when i restored the pib file, all the contacts were saved in “contacts” of my windows mobile and when i poen contacts everything is blank. i cannot see names in the contact list.
any help please…
17 April 2009 at 2:27 am |
Hi, this was great. A couple of things. I didn’t need the zipped.pib file. In fact I couldn’t import from it. I just used the csc file. And I had to do the edit>done bit too for every contact. But it has saved me a lot of grief nonetheless.
Thanks.
Kieran.
17 April 2009 at 11:49 pm |
This worked flawless, just had to change the properties in windows to show file name extensions, renamed them properly, and bam! got my contacts!!!! thank you!!!!!!!!
21 April 2009 at 7:29 pm |
Aaargh I really can’t make it work properly! My Phonebooks are still Unknown.
5 May 2009 at 7:53 am |
windows mobile 2006
-exported csv file from outlook (renamed to CSC)
-copied to treo using active sync copy/paste
-opened file and restored
-contacts imported fine BUT they show as UNKNOWN
8 May 2009 at 4:25 pm |
My old phone running on windows mobile6.0 crashed but somehow i was able to retrieve the pim.vol file from it. Now i’ve got a new phone which runs on 6.1. I tried copying this file into the root directory of the phone but it does not read the old contacts, what do i do? any way to retrieve contacts?
12 May 2009 at 7:42 pm |
Thanks for the help it worked well with transfer from windows mail
12 May 2009 at 7:43 pm |
ps Windows mobile 2003 and Vistal ultimate 64bit os
again thanks
4 June 2009 at 6:16 am |
Aahhhh!!!!!
I was so hoping this would work for calendar as well!!!
4 June 2009 at 12:46 pm |
@ Mexy -
Maybe you can figure out and write a similar article on how to do it for the Calendar?
19 June 2009 at 9:06 pm |
I followed the steps above.. Exported from WAB to csv file. Then renamed to .csc and zipped and renamed that to .pib. When I try and open with PIM Backup it says the format is not valid. Is there a step I am missing?
20 June 2009 at 12:14 am |
Good tip. Actually this is a trick reverse process of the export process of PIM application.
I solved my situation: my nokia 6600 export contacts to a .vcf file. An online convert helps me to convert it to .csv file.Follows your steps. Finally, I imported my contacts OK to my new HTC Pro, WM6.5.
One more word, PIM Backup is really an excellent application according to me. It does a very good job.
20 June 2009 at 3:18 am |
[...] buscar por internet encontré cómo importar los contactos en su blog, en el siguiente enlace: Importing Contacts To Windows Mobile Without MS Outlook « Manish’s Blog. Author: sergio.molina Categories: tecnologia, trucos Tags: Comentarios (0) [...]
22 June 2009 at 5:46 am |
Thank you so much! Extremely useful, especially with my ActiveSync not willing to sync
26 June 2009 at 11:06 am |
Thank you so much.
You save my 300 contacts address.
Very useful and easy to follow your instruction.
Wish you healthy and happy.
9 July 2009 at 10:56 am |
I had a lot of contacts saved to the Outlook contacts (not to the SIM contact space) on my mobile HTC Touch
The Outlook client on my mobile had a connection setting/partnership to my previous employer exchange server and kept asking as it failed to connect, so I kind of deleted the connection on the device when I ActiveSynced to a different PC!
Now I see that all my Outlook contacts are not visible when I see the contacts on the phone! I am not sure why the Outlook Contacts are not shown even when the pim.vol has those?
I copied the pim.vol to my PC and checked that there are contacts in there but I am not able to view them? Please help
16 July 2009 at 2:33 am |
When I go to browse for the contacts.pib file I am not able to find it. I should state that when you said to rename the files I did just that. I right clicked the file choose rename and renamed them as suggested.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
21 July 2009 at 10:36 pm |
Thanks for a great application. I don’t use Outlook on my cell phones or PC. Everytime I purchase a new phone, moving contact records is a problem. I like the more comprehensive information on the cell phone Outlook contacts, but am forced to reply on the SIM card contacts for transfers which loses important information. I spent some time with Google trying to find a better way and that is how I located your super great program. I was so impressed I sent you a PayPal donation. Thanks for your efforts.
26 August 2009 at 2:22 pm |
excellent and thanks
26 August 2009 at 8:04 pm |
hi!
i have the following problem: i have a htc diamond 2. on my home pc i am using the yahoo adress book to organize my numbers, addresses etc. now i want to get all the contacts from yahoo to my diamond 2, which runs win mobile. so finally i found this page and tried it.
my problem: i could import it. but it didn’t work correct. i can’t find the contacts, that i have created with yahoo. instead of this, now i find many contacts with “unknown” on it.
can anyone help me, getting my contacts with all its information from yahoo to win mobile on htc diamond 2?
14 September 2009 at 5:56 pm |
I am using an HTC Windows Mobile and Imported about 140 contacts from my outlook following the above steps.
What worked for me:-> I renamed the files (Step 5) using command prompt, Right Click and renaming the file did not work for me.
Also, I had to make editions in the way the fields were mapping from the csv file to the Windows contact fields.
Worked after a couple of tries.. Thanks for hosting this solution!
20 September 2009 at 5:15 pm |
Hi Manish,
Thank you very much. This worked well. Without your guidance, I am totally lost trying to transfer my hundreds of contacts from my beloved Palm to my interim WinMo Asus.
26 September 2009 at 7:18 pm |
Hi Manish,
Thank you for offering this solution. I have a question that was raised bu another poster: In the past I have used ActiveSync on a Windows machine with XP installed, but that machine is now trashed and all I have to hand is a laptop with Vista, or a virtual Linux (Knoppix). PimBackup has created bakup files with all the address/contacts etc data from my HTC P3300, and I would like to edit the information on that backup on the laptop, maybe with openoffice or similar. This is required because there are many duplicate entries which need to be deleted. I tried following your instructions in reverse, that is to say, I changed the extension of the backup from PIMBackup_20090926.pib to PIMBackup_20090926.zip, then decompressed to a new folder. Now I am stuck because the file extensions have nothing to do with the ones discussed here: appts_20090926.pba – clogs_20090926.pbl – contacts_20090926.pbc – custom_20090926.pbx – msgs_20090926.pbm – speeddials_20090926.pbd – tasks_20090926.pbt. Should I try changing exts to*.csv?
5 October 2009 at 5:45 am |
CSC files or pib files dont exist on xp computers
7 October 2009 at 10:07 am |
This was Awesome. I skipped all the extention changining and what not for the most part. As long as you make it a .pib you should be fine. Thanks for the awesome app.
12 October 2009 at 11:53 pm |
it was soooo helpful .. greaat… all 3200 contacts from my company in my HTC… thx again
1 November 2009 at 5:32 am |
Thank you so much, you saved my life. I’ve been searching for hours until I came up with the pib search term that led me to this site.
1 November 2009 at 1:22 pm |
You’ve saved me.
finally, i could import address book from csv data.