How to Import an Address Book into Facebook

By Carolyn Abram from Facebook For Dummies, 4th Edition

If you’re someone who uses a desktop e-mail client, such as Microsoft Outlook or Entourage, the Facebook Friend Finder won’t be able to access your list of contacts without your help. Chances are that you came across Friend Finder when you first set up your account. The Friend Finder assumes that you use web-based e-mail (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and so on) and that the address book for the e-mail has a bunch of your friends in it.

If you don’t, you have to create a file of your contacts and import it so that Facebook can check it for friend matches. The way to create your contact file depends on which e-mail client you use. Here’s how to get the right instructions:

From the Friend Finder, select the Other Tools option at the bottom of the screen.
Click Upload Contact File, the first blue link.

A button appears asking you to choose your contact file. If you don’t know where to find your contact file, click the How to Create a Contact File link just above the upload field. This expands a window with instructions for most desktop e-mail programs, as well as a few websites such as LinkedIn.
After you have created and saved a contact file, click Choose File.

This opens a window that lets you select your file from your computer’s hard drive.
After you have selected a file, click Upload Contacts.
Decide how to treat the contacts in your Address Book.

You have the following options:
- Click Add as Friends: Choose this option to add everyone as a friend.
- Click Skip: Choose this if you don’t want to add anyone as a friend.
- Click the faces or check boxes to the left of the specific names that you don’t want to be friends with: After you deselect all the people you don’t want, click Add as Friends.
- Uncheck the Select All box at the top of the screen: Then, check the box to the left of the name or click the face of anyone you want to add as a friend. When you’ve selected everyone you’d like to invite, click Add as Friends.
(Optional) Invite people to join Facebook and become your friend.

Similar to adding friends, you can
- Invite all these contacts. Click Invite to Join.
- Invite none of these contacts. Click Skip.
- Invite some of these contacts. Select the Invite Some Friends option and then use the check boxes to the left of their e-mail addresses to choose which ones you want to Invite to join Facebook.
When you’ve made your selections, click Send Invites or Invite to Join. If you don’t want to send any invitations, click Skip.

Your friends need to confirm your requests before you officially become friends on Facebook, so you may not be able to see your friends’ timelines until that confirmation happens.