How to Download Contacts from Facebook To Outlook Address Book

Facebook users are not too pleased with the "walled garden" approach of Facebook. The reason is simple - while you can easily import your Outlook address book and GMail contacts into Facebook, the reverse path is closed.

There's no "official" way to export your Facebook friends email addresses or contact phone numbers out as a CSV file so that you can sync the contacts data with Outlook, GMail or your BlackBerry.

Some third-party Facebook hacks like "Facebook Sync" (for Mac) and "Facebook Downloader" (for Windows) did allow you to download your Facebook friends' names, emails, mobile phone number and profile photo to the desktop but they were quickly removed for violation of Facebook Terms of Use.

How to Download Contacts from Facebook

There are still some options to take Friends data outside the walls of Facebook wall.

1. Facebook offers the Takeout option allowing you to download all Facebook data locally to the disk (include the Facebook Photos). Go to your Account Settings page and click the “Download Your Information” link. This will include email address of your Facebook friends who have authorized Facebook to include their data in the exported files.
2. Alternatively, you can use the simpler Yahoo Mail option to export emails of all Facebook Friends. Once you link your Facebook and Yahoo account, all the email address of your friends will be available in your Yahoo address book that you download as a CSF file, VCF, as a text file or any other standard formats.

If you are on Microsoft Outlook, Fonebook is one easy (and legal) option to transfer photos, web address and birthdays of your Facebook contacts to Outlook (no email or mobile phone numbers). Update: No longer active.

Another secret program is Profilicious that will export your Facebook address book to other programs like Outlook or GMail. Since Facebook displays the contact email addresses as an image, Profilicious has an inbuilt OCR to extract the text out of that image. Update: No longer available.

Related: Add Friends Pictures from Facebook to Outlook Address Book