Copying contacts from Windows 10 PC Outlook to iPad Air 2024

[MPIon]

Am trying to copy all my contacts from Outlook on my PC to my new iPad Air, but without success. I have googled quite a lot, but none of the methods seemed to work and are either out of date or have bits missing. I am using a USB cable from PC to iPad, and using iTunes on the PC.
I followed the instructions shown below :
Sync your Outlook Data File (.pst) with your iOS device

1. Connect your iPhone or iPod touch to your computer using the cable provided with your device or by placing the iPhone or iPod touch in the Apple Universal Dock.

iTunes opens automatically when connected to your computer.
2. In iTunes, in the source list, under Devices, click the entry for your iPhone or iPod touch.
3. Click the Info tab.
4. Under Contacts, click Sync contacts from, and then click Outlook.
5. Do one of the following:
• To synchronize all contacts, click All contacts.
• To limit the contacts that are synchronized, click Selected groups, and then click the groups you want to synchronize.

However, under the Info tab, there was no Contacts option, just the following displayed :-

I was not using iCloud, so don't know why this came up. When I looked into iCloud there weren't any Contacts, so that did not work.

Finally, I don't want to Sync - just export the contacts once.

Anyone know a working way to do this? Ideally exporting the contacts to a file, then transferring in some way to the iPad and then importing to Contacts would be nice.

 

[giradman]

Hi again Miles - before retirement I had an Outlook account at my job but this was in my PC days - now on Apple devices I had no need to sync it; but just looking at my iPad and Contacts in Settings (first pic below), I have the accounts shown in the app - tapping 'Add Account' opens the second page were 'Microsoft Exchange' and 'Outlook.com' are listed - you might want to try adding your account using one of those options? Will it work, don't know? Likely will come in as an added account to whatever list you have currently on your iPad.

As to iCloud, assume that you created an 'Apple ID' when you setup your iPad? Apple gives you 5 GB free in iCloud - whenever you charge your iPad, it will be automatically backed up to iCloud, so worth the effort - now if you want to do more or backup multiple iDevices, the free amount may not be enough - wife and I each have a 50 GB account (my 2 iDevices use up 7+ GBs for their backups) at a buck a month only. Let us know how you solved the Outlook issue - I'm sure others are in the same situation. Dave

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[MPIon]

Dave,

Thanks for your reply. Amazing, it worked with a bit of fiddling about.

Followed your suggestion and added Outlook.com, but it did not add anything to the iPad Contacts.
My Outlook.com did not have the contacts from my PC Outlook - never use Outlook.com, so I first had to export the Outlook contacts on the PC to a CSV file, then import to Outlook.com. Once I did that, the Contacts were available on the iPad - under a list called Outlook.

Great and thanks

Miles

 

[giradman]

Dave,

Thanks for your reply. Amazing, it worked with a bit of fiddling about.

Followed your suggestion and added Outlook.com, but it did not add anything to the iPad Contacts.
My Outlook.com did not have the contacts from my PC Outlook - never use Outlook.com, so I first had to export the Outlook contacts on the PC to a CSV file, then import to Outlook.com. Once I did that, the Contacts were available on the iPad - under a list called Outlook.

Great and thanks

Miles

- Great! Dave